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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 






L 






-v 



WRITINGS 



IX 



PROSE AND. VERSE, 



ON 



VARIOUS SUBJECTS, 



BY 



JOHN G. WILSON. 



The commonest mind is full of thoughts ; some worthy of the rarest ; 



And could it see them fairly writ, would wonder at its wealth. 




Tuppeb. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 

AND FOB SALE BY 

WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEX, 606 CHESTNUT ST., 

PERKINPINE & HIGGIXS, 56 N. FOURTH ST. 

1860, 



• v 



/ 
M 



\\0 



VOL. I. 



DISCOURSES ON PROPHECY. 

(SECOND EDITION, INCLUDING THE VINDICATION.) 



This is a compendious exhibition, on a scheme en- 
tirely new, of the Divine purpose in the redemption 
of man by Jesus Christ, as revealed in the more 
sure word of prophecy, which is as a light that 
shineth in a dark place, showing that the dominion 
of the world will be given to the saints of God, and 
that all the rest of mankind will be subject to their 
government ; that in their condition of glory and 
blessedness the saints will have an everlasting re- 
ward ; and in their condition of dishonor and shame 
the ungodly will have an everlasting punishment. 
But that all sinful intelligences will eventually be 
subdued and reconciled to God, become obedient 
subjects of the Kingdom, and, saved from torment 
and pain, be made as happy as their condition will 
allow. 

In all departments of science new discoveries are 
considered practicable, and are commonly hailed 
with delight. Why should not new discoveries in 
Biblical truth be deemed equally so, and welcomed 
accordingly? The Bible, as a record of God's 
thoughts and purposes in relation to the moral gov- 



iv 



ernment of his creatures, while shedding the dews 
of salvation abundantly upon thousands of believing 
hearts and inquiring minds, may have been, like the 
great book of nature, but pa.rtially understood. And 
the scribe, instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, 
like the diligent student of nature, is to bring out of 
this treasury things both new and old. We trust 
that it will not be deemed presumptuous in us to aim, 
in humble dependence on God, to fulfil this duty. 
So far as our knowledge extends, no one else has 
ever taken the view of the Divine government and 
proceedings, in whole, which is presented in this 
volume. Our view, it is true, presents much that 
is common to all evangelical expositions of the 
Scheme of Redemption. And where we think we 
have discovered new light, and have presented new 
views, we have endeavored to give the reason for 
the hope that is in us with meekness and fear. 

If any one should ask, as some have done, why 
these things were not discovered previously by the 
learned and wise and good who have diligently 
studied the Bible to find the truth ? We answer, by 
inquiring why the circulation of the blood was not 
discovered before Harvey ? and gravitation before 
Newton? and electricity before Franklin ? The 
Bible is as rich in truth as nature is in fact. In the 
glorious sky of Revelation, as well as in the natural 
heavens, there may be stars w T hose light has not yet 
reached us, and which may be designed to bless the 
world in its future track ; the discovery of which 
may be made by some diligent student hereafter. 
When we consider the dispensations of God as al- 



ready historically developed or prophetically inti- 
mated in his word . in their connection with and 
relation to the great scheme of redemption, we ex- 
claim with Paul, " the depth of the riches both of 
the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearch- 
able are his judgments, and his ways past finding 
out," — and with the Psalmist, " Thou has magni- 
fied thy word above all thy name." 

We have not the vanity or presumption to sup- 
pose that we are above the liability to err ; but we 
have searched diligently after the truth, and have 
not written a line without conviction of its accord- 
ance with the testimony of the Divine word. If we 
have erred we shall be truly grateful to any one 
who will point out our errors, and show unto us a 
more excellent way. We ask a candid perusal of 
this volume, a thorough investigation of the views 
of the Scheme of Redemption presented in it, and 
an unprejudiced judgment respecting them. 

We shall be pleased to hear from any who may 
be interested in our views, and to answer inquiries 
respecting them. Having derived unspeakable com- 
fort from them to our own mind, we are desirous of 
communicating the same to others, and therefore 
invite inquiry and criticism. 

May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the God of all grace and consolation, grant 
us the unction from above which shall guide us into 
all Truth. 



(See Advertisement and Notices at the close of this volume.) 



VI 



VINDICATION, 



This contains replies to some notices of the 
Discourses on Prophecy in which my theory of 
Redemption was mis-stated, answers to letters, &c. 
This has been published separately from the Dis- 
courses to accommodate those who have the first 
edition, and will be sent to any one on the receipt 
of twenty-five cents in money, or postage stamps. 



VOL. II. 



THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 



The interest just now awakened in this communi- 
ty on the Sabbath Question, has hastened the publi- 
cation of this volume, which is designed to supply 
a need which the author, with thousands of sincere 
and honest minds, long felt, and which he feels 
confident he has now reached through a careful and 



Vll 

patient study of the Word of God. The reader 
will, I trust, find a satisfactory answer to the fol- 
lowing questions. 

Is the Sabbath a Divine Institution ? 

Is there a moral necessity for it ? 

Is it of universal obligation ? 

What was its special relation in the national 
Covenant made with Israel? 

Has the first day of the week been divinely insti- 
tuted in place of the seventh day, as the Christian 

Sabbath ? — And for what reasons ? 

How ought it to be observed ? — And what works 
may be regarded as allowable profanations of it ? 

We invite not only all Christians who observe the 
first day of the week, but also all those who hold to 
the seventh day — all Jews, Infidels, and nothinga- 
rians, to a candid consideration of the subject here 
presented, hoping thereby to conduce something 
towards giving a more healthy tone to public senti- 
ment on this subject, and promoting a more enlight- 
ened and conscientious observance of the Lord's 
day. 



To any one who will remit us the price of the book, (75 cents,) 
it will be sent by mail or otherwise free of expense. 



vm 



DISCOURSES ON THE APOCALYPSE. 



We hope soon to make arrangements for the pub- 
lication of these Discourses which are of an exposi- 
tory character, in which every paragraph is separate- 
ly and explicitly considered, while the most complete 
and systematic arrangement of the whole is preserved. 
The arrangement and classification of the Visions 
presented in this volume will be found entirely new, 
and we think so natural and harmonious, so conso- 
nant with the analogy of faith, and exhibiting the 
dispensations of God in such agreement with the 
benevolence and rectitude of his character, as to be 
commended to the enlightened judgment of all who 
are in quest of truth. And what has hitherto been 
regarded by the generality of Christendom as a 
sealed book, will, we are confident, be made plain 
to the understanding of the intelligent reader, who 
will at least, whether he receive or reject our views, 
have the satisfaction of comprehending our mean- 
ing, and being furnished with a key to the interpre- 
tation of the symbols by which the agents, acts, 
and events predicted in this book are represented. 

We commit all to the overruling providence of 
God, and patiently wait for some clear indication 
of His will, to whom we have consecrated our Writ- 
ings for the glory of His name — the exaltation of 
His word, and the salvation of mankind. 



THE 



SABBATH AND ITS LORD, 



AND 



THE DIYINE MAN. 



By JOHN G. WILSON, 

MINISTER OF TH£ WORD OF GO.Q. 






I WORK FOR GOD AND G D.— Tupper. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 

AND FOR SALE BY 

WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN, 606 CHESTNUT ST. 
PERKINPINE & HIGGINS, 56 N. FOURTH ST. 

1860. 



" IN PROPORTION AS THE SABBATH IS IMPROVED, WILL EACH DAY 
RESEMBLE A SABBATH, IN BEING EMPLOYED FOR GOD, AND SPENT IN 
THE FRAME OF SPIRIT WHICH MOST RESEMBLES THAT OF THE BLESSED 
BEINGS WHO KEEP A PERPETUAL SABBATH AROUND THE THRONE." 

M. L. D. 

"IT IS MANIFESTLY PROPER, THAT BEINGS WHO ARE DEPENDENT 
UPON GOD FOR ALL THINGS, AND ESPECIALLY FOR THEIR HOPES OF 
IMMORTALITY, SHOULD DEVOTE A PORTION OF THEIR TIME TO THE 
EXPRESSION OF THEIR GRATITUDE, AND SUBMISSION, AND REVERENCE. 

"COMMUNITY OF DEPENDENCE AND OF HOPE DICTATES THE PRO- 

PRIETY OF UNITED WORSHIP ; AND WORSHIP, TO BE UNITED, MUST 

BE PERFORMED AT TIMES PREVIOUSLY FIXED." 

Dymond. 



< * ♦ » ► 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

JOHN G. WILSON, 

In the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



CONTENTS 



•■^ «♦ » » ►* 



Dedication, % 

The Sabbath, . 8 

Preface, 9 

CHAPTER L 

The Sabbath, Creation's Holyday, 15 

Meaning and application of the word, 15 

The cosmogony of Moses, 16 

The Divine rest, . ... . . ,, *. 17 

Man not an idler in Eden,.... 18 

The Sabbath not merely to recruit his wasted strength, 19 

But to meet the wants of his spiritual nature, 20 

And meets a social necessity, .. 22 

The Sabbath a blessing......... 23 

The first Sabbath in Eden, 24 

CHAPTER II. . 

The Sabbath, Redemption's "Working Day, 26 

Necessary to man before the fall and more so since, 26 

I. The Sabbath before the Law, 27 

(3; 



4 CONTENTS. 

Known and observed from the beginning, 27 

The end of days, Gen. iv. 3, 4, ~ 28 

Weekly division of time, 29 

Testimonies of Manassah, Ben Israel, and Philo, 30 

Observations on Ex. xvi. Gift of manna, 30 

IL The Sabbath imder the Law, 35 

Incorporated in the Decalogue^ *.... 35 

Of perpetual obligation, 37 

Promise to Abraham — the natural seed, 38 

The Sabbath a sign of their national covenant, 39 

Sabbath-breaking a capital offense, 40 

National blessings promised, 43 

Its aspect to them individually, 47 

Its sanctification, 50 

III. The Sabbath under the Gospel, 54 

Result of the trial of the natural seed, 55 

No flesh justified by the law of the national covenant, 55 

Justification by faith, 56 

Object of the gospel dispensation, 57 

Observance of the Sabbath not enjoined in the New 

Testament, 58 

Legal aspect of the Sabbath associated with the seventh 

day rendered a change necessary, 62 

The designation of the first day of the week, 63 

The first Christians being Jews, kept two sabbaths, 67 

Gentile Christians kept but one, and that the first day 

of the week, 67 

Paul would not allow the observance of the seventh 

day to be imposed on the Gentiles, 68 

Inculcated liberty of conscience, 70 

The first day of the week the Christian Sabbath, 72 



CONTENTS. 5 

CHAPTER III. 

The Sabbath, the Millennium's Symbol Dat, "75 

Its symbolic character, 76 

Adam and Christ — representative men, 77 

Work of Christ, 77 

Adam's knowledge of the symbolic character of the 

Sabbath, ....,, 79 

The Six Days of Creation all symbol days, 79 

Tradition of the House of Elias, 82 

Paul's argument in Hebrews iv, 83 

Testimony of Christian fathers, 86 

The Rest remaining to the people of God, 90 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Lord of the Sabbath, 93 

The question, Whom do men say that I am? 93 

Humanitarianism, 94 

Semi-Humanitarianism, 95 

Christ the Son of God, 96 

His pre-existence, 98 

Personal representative of God, 100 

By whom all things were created, etc., 101 

His Incarnation, ... 102 

His unchangeableness, 105 

His universal Lordship, 107 

Lord of the Sabbath through all dispensations, 108 

Lord of the coming Millennial Sabbath,. 113 



CHAPTER V. 

The Observance of the Sabbath, 116 

1* 



6 CONTENTS. 

Man not made for the Sabbath, 116 

The Sabbath made for man, 117 

Made for man's use, 118 

Teachings of Christ: Works of necessity, 119 

Works of religious service, 120 

Works of mercy, 121 

Caution against abuses, 125 

Physicians, Apothecaries, etc., 126 

Business on the Sabbath day, 127 

Preparation for keeping the Sabbath, etc.,... 131 

The Millennial Sabbath. 133 

THE DIVINE MAN. 

Dialogue between Reason and Revelation, etc., 141 

Index thereto, 179 



V 



tbuation. 



-«♦« 



THIS VOLUME 



IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 



TO 



JOHN CLARK, ESQ, 



©f Baltimore, 



AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT, BY THE 



AUTHOR, 



OF HIS ESTEEMED FRIENDSHIP, 



GENEROUS SYMPATHY, 



AND 



TRUE KINDNESS 



m 



THE SABBATH. 

Creation's holyday, 

Day of Jehovah's rest, 
When ceasing from his finished work, 

His lips pronounced it blest. 
Then sang the morning stars, 

Shouted the sons of God, 
And man a holy Sabbath spent 

In Eden's pure abode. 



Redemption's working day, 

To man in mercy given, 
To lay aside his earthly toil 

For intercourse with Heaven : 
That shaking off the weight 

Of worldly thought and care, 
He may renew his spirit's strength 

In holy praise and prayer. 



s 



Millennium's symbol day, 

Type of a rest to come, 
When saints, redeemed from sin and death, 

Shall dwell with Christ at home ; 
When earth no more shall groan 

Beneath the curse of pain ; 
But Paradise shall be restored, 

And peace forever reign. 



(8) 



PREFACE. 



-*♦»- 



I offer no apology for giving to the community a 
new book on the sabbath. At a time when there are 
found so many professing Christianity who coincide 
with the ungodly in urging forward public measures 
for the general desecration of that day, it is a duty 
one owes to God and humanity, to do all he can to 
preserve from abuse an institution which is the very 
palladium of heaven's richest blessings of providence 
and grace. The best way of promoting the observ- 
ance of any institution, if it be really good, is to dis- 
seminate correct views concerning it, presenting it in 
its true light, showing its Divine appointment, moral 
nature, absolute necessity, perpetual obligation, and 
indispensable utility. Common-place as the subject 
may appear to many, it is intrinsically one of great 
interest, and by no means exhausted of its attractive- 
ness and force by those who have heretofore written 
upon it. Beneath the surface of the earth, through 
which men have driven the plough, and from which 
they have reaped stores of grain, have laid undis- 

(9) 



10 PREFACE. 

covered rich mines of precious metal, to reward in 
the end some diligent laborer, who digging deeper 
than was wont, shall strike with his spade the hidden 
vein, and reveal its wealth. The Sabbatical institution 
has its fertile soil and its rich mines. With earnest 
desire to find, and diligent application in seeking, I 
have dug in this field, and now present for the con- 
sideration of the reader, and, if found worthy, for his 
adoption, the thoughts which in this connection have 
been awakened in my mind. If they are the pure gold 
of truth, they will stand the test of enlightened Bibli- 
cal criticism, to which they are cheerfuly submitted. 
If there be in them any of the base alloy of error, no 
one will rejoice more in its detection and exposure 
than I, and no one will be more ready to remove the 
scum, that the truth may appear in all its Divine and 
heavenly purity. 

I am not aware that any who have written upon 
the sabbath have taken the view of it here presented. 
There will be found in this . treatise, not only old 
thoughts in new forms, and some which have perhaps 
been better expressed by others; but, also, new thoughts 
now first developed from the germs of Divine 
truth. The manner in which the subject is treated is 
also, I believe, entirely new. Yet I have not sought 
after novelties from any particular penchant for them, 
but I have sought after truth ; and with humble de- 



PREFACE. 11 

pendence on God, and earnest prayer for the teachings 
of his Spirit, I have daily searched the Scriptures that 
I might know the things which are freely given to us 
of God, joyfully accepting the confirmation, by the 
testimony of the Word, of those truths which are old ; 
and thankfully receiving, from the same testimony, 
the knowledge of the truths which are new. And as 
every scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven 
is likened unto a householder who brings forth out of 
his treasury things new and old; so, following the 
order in which they were developed to my under- 
standing, I have, with as much plainness of speech 
and perspicuity of style as I am master of, endeavored 
to set forth the truths, whether new or old, respecting 
the sabbath, and its Lord, which I have found in the 
treasury of inspiration. 

The sabbath is a Divine institution, and belongs 
legitimately to a Divine religion ; for although false 
religions or corruptions of the true, may have in some 
instances retained the day, they lost the thing. The 
weekly division of time, and the observance of the 
seventh day as a religious festival were retained espe- 
cially by the Eastern nations after the confusion of 
tongues and their consequent dispersion from the 
scene of their folly; but it was to them no longer a 
real sabbath. Its design, use, and import, were per- 
verted ; and, b^ing abused to idolatrous purposes, it 



12 PREFACE. 

was more desecrated in its observance, than it would 
have been by its neglect. In idolatrous communities 
the sabbath soon lost its sacredness, and, if observed 
at all, became a season of the grossest licentiousness 
and brutality; the restraints of passion were thrown 
off, and men and women abandoned themselves to 
every species of vice. The holidays of the heathen 
were the most unholy of all days, being characterized 
by an abandonment to sensual dissipation. It is only 
among the people of God, that, in any age, a sabbath 
can be found worthy of the name ; and among them 
only as they adhered to the true faith. It is so now 
also. The more truly evangelical a people are, the 
more sacredly is the sabbath observed according to 
the design of the institution. The corruptions of 
Christianity are characterized by a looseness in regard 
to the observance of the sabbath. And the more cor- 
rupt any Christian community becomes, the more friv- 
olous is the manner of its observance. This is so gen- 
eral, that the manner in which the sabbath is observed 
among any people, may be taken as a pretty correct 
index of their religion. A religion without a sab- 
bath would soon fall into desuetude ; and a sabbath 
profaned, neglected, and despised, is an evidence of a 
corrupt and profligate religion, and the open door for 
every species of vice and wickedness. 

Where the sabbath is observed as it should be, the 



PREFACE. 13 

people are industrious, prosperous, virtuous, and happy. 
There true religion holds its sway. There order, 
peace, and good neighborhood is the rule; and dis- 
order, riot, and crime is the exception. Wickedness 
dare not lift up its head in the face of a well-kept 
sabbath. It is therefore the true policy of a govern- 
ment to promote, as far as possible, the due observance 
of the sabbath. The law of the sabbath, and all other 
moral laws, are obligatory upon the people in the 
very nature of things, and by the constitution of their 
being, as set forth in the commandments of God, inde- 
pendent of the sanction of human laws ; but it is the 
interest of every nation to enforce the observance of 
morality, and to suppress vice and crime, hence it is 
their interest to enforce the observance of the sabbath. 
We should be horrified if the Legislature were to 
legalize murder, adultery, theft, and perjury. It would 
be to legislate against the very life and well-being of 
the community. To legislate against the sabbath is 
by many regarded as a little thing, and yet it is to 
legislate against the peace and security of the com- 
monwealth. Any enactment which tends to weaken 
the obligations of the people to observe the sabbath, 
or provides for its desecration, weakens, in the same 
proportion, the power and influence of the civil ma- 
gistrate, strengthens the bands of the lawless and dis- 
obedient, and provides for the increase of licentious- 



14 PKEFACE. 

ness and every degrading vice. It is easier to keep 
up and preserve the defenses of virtue and religion 
than, after they have been broken down for any length 
of time, to set them up again. The conservators of 
the public weal would consult the peace and happiness 
of the people by providing for a more strict observ- 
ance of the sabbath, instead of breaking down the ex- 
isting restraints upon its desecration. It is certainly 
the duty of all Christians who believe that obedience 
to the Divine laws will ensure the welfare of the 
people and the tranquillity of the State to use all their 
influence, legitimately, to prevent any legal authoriza- 
tion of sabbath-breaking, either by individuals or cor- 
porations. 

To awaken attention to the subject; to furnish infor- 
mation respecting it ; to inspire a greater love for it ; 
to induce a more enlightened and conscientious ob- 
servance of it ; and to dissuade others from desecrat- 
ing the sabbath is the design of my book. And I 
humbly, yet confidently, submit the views herein pre- 
sented to all sects and parties for their serious con- 
sideration and candid judgment, according to the 
apostolic injunction, " Prove all things ; hold fast that 
which is good." And as nothing but the truth can 
make us free from error, and unite us in faith and 
practice, so I pray that God, by his blessing, may 
prosper the truth. 

Kensington, Philadelphia, 1859. 



THE SABBATH AND ITS LOUD. 



-*♦*- 



CHAPTER I. 
creation's holyday. 

" And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and 
not man for the sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is Lord 
also of the sabbath."— Mark ii. 27, 28. 

The Sabbath is Creation's Holyday, and viewed 
in relation to its origin, design, adaptations and effects, 
is a subject of deep interest. It is associated with all 
that is pure and noble in the creation, history, and 
destiny of the earth. So essential is it to the well- 
being of mankind that its due observance is made a 
moral obligation, sanctioned by the authority of Je- 
hovah himself, when he made Sinai his legislative 
hall, and from his pavilion of cloud proclaimed the 
law — "Bemember the sabbath day to keep it 

HOLY." 

Sabbath is a Hebrew word transferred to our lan- 
guage, and it signifies rest. For in six days God 
created the heavens and the earth and all their hosts. 
" And on the seventh day Grod ended his work which 

(15) 



16 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOED. 

he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from 
all his work which he had made. And God blessed 
the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he 
had rested from all his work which God created and 
made." Gen. ii. 2, 3. How stupendous are the works 
of God ! With wonder and delight we contemplate 
the production and formation of this magnificent uni- 
verse. What an immense space is occupied even by 
the solar system ! How grand its central orb of light 
and heat, its planets, asteroids, moons, and comets! 
But imagination is overwhelmed and lost in the ex- 
ceeding vastness of the great unknown beyond, where 
every twinkling star, the central sun of some vast 
system, shines. 

" These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, 
Almighty ; thine this universal frame, s 
Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then.* 

The cosmogony of Moses relates not to the produc- 
tion of matter and the primitive construction of the 
universe, but to a reconstruction of what is termed 
the heavens and the earth — referring to this globe and 
its relations, and the creation of new orders of plants, 
trees, and animals, and a new race of intelligent 
beings. 

Since the original formation of the universe many 
changes have no doubt been made in its various parts, 
as God in his wisdom has seen to be necessary for new 
modifications of being, or purposes of moral govern- 
ment. The globe on which we dwell has evidently 
been subject to changes produced by fire and water. 



ceeation's holyday. 17 

Gen. i. 2 — " And the earth was without form and 
void and darkness was "upon the face of the deep, and 
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," 
refers to the state of the earth at the time the Mosaic 
narrative commences. Of the six days' work, light is 
said to have been the first creation ; but in this passage 
Moses describes a condition of the earth before light was 
made, and shows conclusively that the globe on which 
we dwell existed previous to the creative acts re- 
corded by him. This condition was, in all probability, 
the result of some great convulsion of nature by 
which a previous form or condition of it was changed, 
and the creatures inhabiting it were destroyed. It 
may have been a general deluge, accompanied with 
such a change in the atmosphere as rendered it in- 
capable of supporting life or of transmitting light, and 
so involving all in darkness and death. The geologi- 
cal record indicates that the earth had been inhabited 
ages before the first human pair was created, and that 
its pre-Adamic inhabitants were destroyed by some 
sudden and overwhelming catastrophe. With this 
the Mosaic narrative agrees, showing that it was 
without form and void when the six days' work of re- 
organization and creation began. The six days' work 
gave to the earth a new condition or form, and fur- 
nished it with new trees and plants and new inhabit- 
ants. a And God saw every thing that he had made 
and behold it was very good." And when all were 
finished he rested on the seventh day. Not that he 
needed rest: "for the Lord, the Creator of heaven 
and earth, fainteth not, neither is weary." It did not 
tire him to create this glorious universe, or reconstruct 
2* 



18 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

any part thereof; "for lie spake and it was done, lie 
commanded and it stood fast." lie found no difficulty 
and felt no weariness. But it was because the work 
of reorganization and construction was finished. It 
was not necessary to keep on creating. All kinds of 
grass and herbs, and trees yielding fruit, had seed in 
themselves for reproduction ; and all living creatures 
were formed with power to propagate their species. 
And when the human pair were fashioned and stood 
in all the purity and glory of the Divine image, u God 
blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and 
multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it." 
Hence new creations were unnecessary. Having made 
all things perfect in their nature, and suited to 
the purposes for which they were formed, he rested 
on the seventh day in a pleasurable contempla- 
tion of all his works, which he pronounced "very 
good." 

It was, also, with a view to sanctify to man a day 
of rest from ordinary occupation and labor, and a 
season for special devotional service and religious en- 
joyment. It was not intended that man should be an 
idler in creation. It was a part of God's plan that he 
should work. And therefore the Lord God planted 
a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man 
to dress it and to keep it. There was plenty of plea- 
sant work in the garden, and six days out of every 
seven were allotted for its performance, and every 
seventh day was set apart as a sabbath — a day of rest 
— a period of cessation from delightful labor, for the 
still more delghtful exercise of praise in the worship 
of the great Creator of all things. We are not to sup- 



creation's holyday. 19 

pose that the six days' employment of man, in his 
primitive condition, were wearisome and fatiguing, so 
as to render the sabbath necessary, in order to recruit 
his failing energies or refresh his exhausted spirits. 
It was no drudgery "to prune those growing plants, 
and tend those flowers," or " to reform the flowery ar- 
bors" and "lop the wanton growth" of branches which 
overhung the "alleys green," their "walk at noon." 
These labors only gave a richer relish to their food, a 
healthier tone to the pure blood, and made their sleep 
at night more sweet. Such labor was adapted to their 
physical nature, and only tended to preserve the vigor 
and elasticity of their bodies. It was not to give rest 
to weary limbs and overtasked muscles ; it was not 
to recruit his wasted strength, and remedy the weekly 
exhaustion of labor, so as to render him capable of 
enduring further toil ; as if labor were an end, or the 
products of labor the chief good, that the sabbath was 
appointed. The institution had not its foundation in 
any such necessity, or for any such reason. We 
might argue this from the fact that the first day of 
man's life was a sabbath. For man was made on the 
sixth day of creation, and near the close of the day. 
He was the crowning-piece of the Creator's works and 
head of all on earth. And the seventh day of crea- 
tion was the first of man's existence. The sabbath 
began at the going down of the sun on the sixth day, 
just after man was made, and placed in the garden : 
hence the first day of his life was the first sabbath. 
It did not succeed a week of toil, and was not there- 
fore designed simply to afford him time to recruit his 
physical strength, for its first observance preceded the 



20 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOKD. 

labor of the week. The first sabbath found man in 
all the freshness and glory of his being as he came 
from the hands of his Creator, and not exhausted and 
fatigued by previous labor. It was not its great ob- 
ject then to give refreshment to the body. 

Nor was the sabbath arbitrarily and capriciously 
appointed. There existed adequate reasons in the na- 
ture of things for the consecration of this portion of 
time to religious uses. The sabbath was made for 
man. Even in his primitive state of innocence and 
purity man needed a sabbath. He was created a reli- 
gious being — a moral agent, whose duty it was to 
love and obey his Creator. He was made upright ; 
but his moral character was only to be formed and 
established by voluntary obedience to the Divine law. 
He was therefore placed in a state of trial. As a moral 
agent he could not otherwise attain to an improve- 
ment of condition. The circumstances in which he 
was placed left him free to act according to the voli- 
tions of his own mind, with full power to obey the 
Divine command, that by constancy of obedience he 
might attain to personal holiness and insure the glory 
set before him as the end of his trial. Innocent he 
was made ; it could not be otherwise, and endued with 
power not only to retain his innocency, but through 
the use of appropriate means to perfect holiness and 
secure glory higher than creation gave him. In that 
primitive condition he had duties to perform, or- 
dinances to observe, temptations to endure, and sin 
to avoid. The great end to be attained was the devel- 
opment, maturity, and perfection of his moral nature. 
He was not made a mere animal, to eat and drink, 



creation's holyday. 21 

to wake and sleep, and otherwise indulge in sensual 
delights. His intellectual and moral powers stamped 
him as a being designed for higher and nobler ends. 
He was made in the image of God, and the ob- 
ject of trial was, that he might, through voluntary 
obedience, be confirmed in holiness, and so glorify 
God and enjoy him forever. It was in view of this 
that the sabbath was instituted. It was to meet the 
wants of his intellectual and moral nature. It was to 
be a means of advancing his moral and religious 
improvement. It was to secure time for more parti- 
cular attention to divine and heavenly contemplations, 
and for more intimate communion with God and 
angels than other days afforded. It was for religious 
and spiritual exercises. It must, therefore, have had 
its ordinances of divine worship, in which were com- 
memorated the wisdom, power, and goodness of God 
as manifested in his glorious works. The sabbath 
was designed to subserve man's spiritual interests. If 
he had been made an irrational creature, as the horse 
or the ox, physical relaxation might have been all 
that he would have needed, and that might have been 
sufficiently secured by nightly rest and refreshment in 
sleep. No sabbath had then been needed. But as 
man was made a rational being and moral agent, re- 
laxation from labor and business could not satisfy the 
demands of his nature. Night and sleep give him 
rest and refreshment for the body. The physical na- 
ture is thus satisfied. But he needs something more. 
The cultivation of his moral and religious nature de- 
mands a cessation from toil and business, for a part 
of his time, that he may attend to spiritual and reli* 



22 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

gious things. The portion of time thus appropriated 
should be sufficient for the purpose, and made regu- 
larly to occur at short intervals. Such is the sabbath 
day, for which the great Creator saw there would be a 
necessity in man's moral constitution, and which in 
his wisdom he graciously set apart for this use. And 
we may be assured that the amount of time thus de- 
voted to sacred purposes is neither more nor less than 
man's spiritual need required. And even if no neces- 
sity had existed in man's nature for such an ordinance, 
it would have been proper on account of his relation 
to and dependence upon God, that a suitable portion 
of his time should be devoted exclusively to religious 
uses, and for the expression of his gratitude to the 
Giver of all good. God is worthy of being honored 
by a consecration to his worship of a distinct portion 
of our time, that it may be employed in devout medi- 
tation on his nature, perfections, works and ways. 
But there was a necessity for this ordinance in man's 
nature ; and the exercises of the sabbath day — its 
religious services — its divine communings were de- 
signed to reflect in their action upon man in exalting 
his mind and promoting his progress in holiness, until 
he should be completely established in a good charac- 
ter, and prepared for a more exalted condition. 

Man was also created a social being, and in this re- 
lation was required a community of worship. It was 
no more good for him to be alone in religious matters 
than in secular concerns. Congregational worship 
has its foundation in man's nature. He must in this 
manner cultivate the social feelings in religion. The 
religion of an anchoret is unnatural, constrained, and 



creation's holyday. 23 

distorted. For social worship it was necessarjr that 
there should be a fixed and stated time perpetually 
recurring. Without this it could not be known when 
to assemble. It was necessary also that the observance 
of this portion of time should be vested with all the 
weight of a moral obligation. Hence the sabbath was 
sanctified or set apart, by the all- wise Creator and 
Governor of the universe, as a day of rest or cessation 
from ordinary labor and secular business and for a 
religious use. It was not that the day might be spent 
in idleness ; but that it should be appropriated to an 
active employment in spiritual exercises. 

The sabbath was creation's holyday. The works 
of God were finished when, near or at the close of the 
sixth day, man was made in the image of his Creator ; 
and the woman, bone of his bone and flesh of his 
flesh, was given to him as a partner of his life and the 
sharer of his honors and his joys. Then on the 
seventh day the Creator rested in a full satisfaction 
with the works he had made, for they were very good. 
And he blessed the seventh day. He ordained it to 
be a blessing to man. It was not for his own use that 
he blessed it. Every day was alike blessed to him. 
It was set apart and blessed for man's sake. The sab- 
bath was made for mam The condition of man, 
though created in knowledge, righteousness, and true 
holiness, did not place him above the need of it. It 
was an institution demanded by the nature of man ; 
yea, his condition of trial rendered it highly impor- 
tant if not indispensable. It was sanctified for his 
use. It was blessed for his benefit. And his very 
life began with the keeping of the first sabbath as if 



24 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOED. 

to remind him of its great design as a religious insti- 
tution, its importance to the due cultivation of his 
moral nature, and to endear it to his heart. In man's 
life and history the sabbath was placed first before 
all other days, to show that the religious element 
was the most important, and its culture to be first 
attended to. I 

We love to think that the first sabbath, if no more, 
was observed by our first parents according to its ori- 
ginal design. The hypothesis that they sinned and 
were expelled from the garden of Eden on the very 
day they were created is not required by any Bible 
doctrine, and cannot fairly be deduced from the nar- 
rative. The contrary appears more consistent. They 
may have spent many happy days in innocency before 
the tempter found fit opportunity to ply his tempta- 
tion and beguile the woman to disobedience. And we 
love to think that in the blissful bowers of Eden they 
spent the first day of their lives in celebrating the 
praise of the glorious Author of the new-made world. 
It was fit that the holyday of creation should be hal- 
lowed by them in the most exalted spiritual inter- 
course, in divine and heavenly contemplations, in har- 
monious and delightful praise, and in sublime com- 
munion with Jehovah. We love to think that on 
that day they walked and talked with holy angels, 
sweetening their intercourse with songs of lofty 
praise ; that they worshiped in the very presence of 
the Lord God, and learned from him whatever related 
to their duties as intelligent beings ; that then the na- 
ture and conditions of the first covenant were made 
known to them ; that the representative character of 



creation's holyday. 25 

Adam — the interests involved — the rewards of obe- 
dience and the penalty of transgression, were made 
known, that they might understand the relations in 
which they stood, and be armed with every suitable 
motive to continue in obedience and overcome every 
temptation to evil. 

It was the holyday of creation and the day of their 
coronation, in which the sovereignty of earth was 
committed to their hands. They were made a little 
lower than the angels, they were crowned with glory 
and honor, they were made to have dominion over the 
works of God; all things were put under their feet: 
all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field ; 
the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and what- 
soever passeth through the paths of the sea. All were 
made subject to their will. The scene may have ex- 
cited the envy and malice of the fallen angels ; but 
the holy ones, 

" The morning stars, 
Together sang, and all the sons of Gk>d 
Shouted for joy ! Loud was the peal: so loud 
As would have quite o'erwhelmed human sense ; 
But to the earth it came a gentle strain, 
Like softest fall breathed from JEolian lute, 
When, 'mid the chords, the evening gale expires, 
Day of the Lord ! Creation's hallowed close." 

3 



CHAPTBE II. 

KEDEMPTIOSr'S WORKING-DAY. 

" And lie said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, 
and not man for the sabbath. Therefore the Son of man is 
Lord also of the Sabbath." — Mark ii. 27, 28. 

The Sabbath is Eedemption's Working-Day. — 

Its sanctification to man as a day of rest or cessation 
from labor and business, did not consign it to indo- 
lence or inert repose. Had man not sinned ; had lie 
retained his original rectitude and preserved his first 
estate, the sabbath would still have been occupied ac- 
tively and delightfully in spiritual and divine exer- 
cises. This would have been as necessary for the 
continuance and improvement of his religious and 
spiritual life, &8 the six days' labor would have been 
to his physical life. Nor is it any less necessary since 
the fall of man. It is even more necessary. Man's 
need is greater in every respect As he needs to labor 
more and toil harder during the six working days to 
obtain the meat that perishes ; so he needs to improve 
more assiduously the sabbath day for the advancement 
of his spiritual life. How long it was after his crea- 
tion ere man sinned, is a question which belongs not to 
our present subject. It matters not. God, who foresaw 
that man would sin, and designed his redemption, de- 
termined that the sabbath should be continued to him 
(26) 



[REDEMPTION'S working-day. 27 

in Lis fallen state, associated with such means of grace 
as would tend to save him from sin and elevate his 
moral character, and eventually warrant an improve- 
ment of his condition. God foresaw that man would 
need such a day. If he needed it in his primitive 
state of innocence and happiness, how much more 
would he need it in his fallen state of sinfulness and 
misery. And, foreseeing this, the Lord of the Sab- 
bath adapted it to the economy of Eedemption ; and 
hence under the regime of salvation the sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the sabbath. 

It has been a subject of debate among theologians 
whether the sabbath was given to man as an ordinance 
prior to the exode of the Israelites from Egypt. It 
seems evident to my mind that it was divinely insti- 
tuted with man in his Eden state, and subsequently 
adapted, as became necessary by the fall of man, to 
every succeeding dispensation of the economy of grace, 
according to the Divine will. I shall, therefore, con- 
sider it in relation to its aspect before the Law, under 
the Law, and under the Gospel. 

1. THE SABBATH BEFORE THE LAW. 

The sabbath was made for man, that is, for man- 
kind ; the term man being employed generically for 
the human race. It was not made for any special class 
or nation of men. It is not likelv that an institution, 
having its foundation in a necessity of man's nature 
would be kept secret from him for so long a time as 
they suppose who maintain that it was first instituted 
with the Israelites in the wilderness. Adam, in inno- 



28 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOED. 

cence, had his labor assigned to him. His business was 
to dress the garden of Eden and to keep it. It is un- 
reasonable to suppose that the sabbatical rest was not 
made known to him; that his Eden state was unblest 
by any sweet sabbath of communion with God. And 
when by transgression he involved himself and his 
posterity in additional toil to overcome the curse 
which was put upon the ground for man's sake ; it is 
not likely that he would forget the day of rest, or that 
he would let his posterity forget it. And as the pur- 
pose of God to effect the redemption of man from sin 
and death by the seed of the woman was then re- 
vealed, the continuance of the sabbath would not only 
be a reminiscence of what was lost, but also an ante- 
past of what should be required. In the Antediluvian, 
as well as in the Postdiluvian times, they had divinely 
appointed religious institutions ; for Abel and Enoch 
and Noah are commended for their faith. But faith 
implies a revelation ; for faith cometh by hearing, and 
hearing by the word of God. There were doubtless 
revelations made adapted to the wants of the age; 
and revelations have usually been associated with reli- 
gious institutions, such as sacrifices and offerings, and 
these have uniformly been associated with appointed 
times for their performance. Now the sabbath has 
always been the principal time for the offering of sacri- 
fices and special attention to religious duties. In Gen. 
iv. 3, 4, it is written that, " in process of time/' or as it is 
literally, "at the end of days," "it came to pass that 
Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to 
the Lord. And Abel also brought of the firstlings 
of his flock and of the fat thereof." At the end of days 



redemption's working-day. 29 

refers to some well-known division and termination 
of days. The week is the only division of days men- 
tioned by Moses in his history of that early age, and 
there is no time so likely to be designated as the end 
of days as the seventh day or sabbath, coming as it 
did at the termination of the week, and no other upon 
which, by common agreement, they would be likely 
to offer their sacrifices and perform their devotions. 
It was the day set apart for such services ; and it is a 
legitimate inference that they observed the sabbath, 
bringing on that day their offerings to the Lord to the 
place which he had designated for their public wor- 
ship to be paid. 

The weekly division of time is referred to in Gen. 
vii. 4, where it is written " For yet seven days and I will 
cause it to rain on the earth." We suppose that Noah, 
to whom this was said, was in the habit of offering his 
sacrifices unto the Lord at the appointed place of 
worship on the sabbath day ; and that the Lord God 
met with him there, and, on the occasion referred to, re- 
vealed to him, that after the expiration of another week, 
seven days, the deluge should begin. So also in Gen., 
viii. 10, 12, we find that Noah having sent forth a 
dove to ascertain whether the waters were abated, and 
it having returned to him without any evidence of it, 
waited "yet other seven days" and sent it forth again, 
when it returned in the evening with an olive leaf in 
its mouth. And again he waited " yet other seven days" 
and sent it forth again. Thus we find him acting in 
regard to the regular weekly division to time. And as 
this weekly division of time had its origin in the six 
days of creation and one of rest, it is rendered certain 
8* 



30 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

that the institution; nature, and design of the sabbath 
was known to Noah, it having been observed from the 
creation of the world, by the family of Seth. 

Again, there is reference made to this weekly di- 
vision of time in the institution of the Passover, when 
the Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. 
" Seven days/' said he, "thou shalt eat unleavened 
bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the 
Lord." Ex. xiii. 6. They were to eat unleavened bread 
for a week, and the seventh clay of the week was to 
be the festival of the sabbath, which is pre-eminently 
called the LordV festival, the day on which he rested 
from his works and was refreshed. 

Thus it appears to have been usual for God's people 
in the ages before the law to observe the weekly divi- 
sion of time. And we may justly conclude that the 
Sabbath was known to, and observed by them from 
the creation down to the exode of the Israelites from 
Egypt. Manassah-ben-Israel, a Jewish doctor, says, 
that " according to the tradition of the ancients, Abra- 
ham and his posterity, having preserved the memory 
of the creation, observed the sabbath also, in conse- 
quence of the natural law to that purpose." Philo, 
another Jewish writer,, says, " that the sabbath is not 
a festival peculiar to any one people or country, but 
is common to the whole world ; and that it may be 
named the general or public festival, and that of the 
nativity of the world." 

Finally, it appears from the narrative in Exodus 
xvi., that the sabbath had been known and observed 
before the giving of the law. The seed of Abraham 
have been from the beginning a chosen and peculiar 



redemption's working-day, 31 

people, designed, in the economy of redemption, for a 
special purpose, and to that end subjected to a course 
of physical, political, and moral training, differing 
from other nations, and best adapted to secure the ob- 
ject in view. Their deliverance from Egyptian bond- 
age by a series of stupendous miracles, by which the 
magicians of Egypt were confounded, and the pride 
of her kings and princes was brought low, was de- 
signed to make known to them the power and majesty 
of the great I Am, awaken toward him their reveren- 
tial fear, encourage their loving confidence, and im- 
press their minds with a conviction of the folly and 
wickedness of idolatry. And they were led into the 
trials of the wilderness to test their faith in God, con- 
vince them of their entire dependence upon him, and 
develop a due sense of their obligations to obey him ; 
to humble them, and prove them : to know what was 
in their heart, and whether they would keep his com- 
mandments or no. Take for instance the miraculous 
supply of food ; for he suffered them to hunger, and 
then fed them with manna, that he might make them 
understand that man doth not live by bread alone ; 
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of the Lord doth man live. Scarcely had they passed 
through the Red Sea, and reached the desert border- 
ing upon its eastern shore, before their provision failed 
and they began to murmur, and complained that they 
had been brought from a land of plenty into an inhos- 
pitable wilderness, to perish by famine. Then the 
Lord shamed their murmurings by the gift of manna, 
which, in the night, fell round about their camp and 
afforded them an abundant supply of nutritious and 



82 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

wholesome food ; as it is written, " He gave them 
bread from heaven and man did eat angels' food." 
The manna was a small round thing — small as the 
hoar frost, and it lay on the ground after the dew was 
gone up. And Moses said to the people, " This is the 
bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." And 
they gathered as much of it as they needed for the 
day, every man according to the number of persons 
in his tent. It was like coriander seed, white ; and 
the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. It 
was their daily bread, and none of it was to be left 
until the next day ; for if kept over night, it bred 
worms and became offensive to the smell. But when 
the sixth day came, the people generally gathered 
double the usual quantity, so as to have enough for 
the seventh day, which was the sabbath. This they 
did, notwithstanding the manna had always corrupted 
after the first day if any was left over until the mor- 
row. This they did without any special instructions 
from the Lord concerning it, evidently from a habit 
of providing on the sixth day for the necessities of 
the seventh, that they might observe it as a day of 
rest, and divining that he who gave the manna for 
their food would also preserve it from corrupting on 
the seventh day, that they might not violate the sab- 
bath by having to gather it on that day. And the 
rulers of the people who superintended the business 
went and told Moses, that they might ascertain whether 
it were right for the people to do this. And Moses 
having presented the case before the Lord, was told to 
answer them as follows : " To-morrow is the rest of 
the holy sabbath unto the Lord : bake that which you 



redemption's working-day. 33 

will bake to-day, and seethe that which you will 
seethe ; and that which remaineth over lay up for you 
to be kept until the morning." And they did so, and 
it corrupted not ; and Moses told them to eat that on 
the sabbath, for they should not find any in the field. 
But some of the people haying neglected to gather on 
the sixth day for the seventh, either because they did 
not sufficiently regard the sabbath, or because they 
supposed that the manna would spoil as usual, and be 
unfit for food even if they did gather it, went out on 
the sabbath morning into the field to gather it, but 
they found none. And Grod said to Moses, " How 
long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my 
laws. See, for that the Lord hath given you the sab- 
bath, therefore he giveth you, on the sixth day, the 
bread of two days : abide ye every man in his place ; 
let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. 
So the people rested on the seventh day." 

Now these things occurred some time before the 
giving of the Law from Sinai ; and they show that 
the seventh day of the week had been known and ob- 
served as a divinely-instituted sabbath before the pro- 
mulgation of the Decalogue and the special national 
laws were enacted by the Holy One of Israel. The 
narrative shows, that the people generally on this oc- 
casion, and under peculiar circumstances tending 
rather to deter them from it, made provision for the 
due observance of the seventh day as a time of cessa- 
tion from all labor and secular business. The manna 
must have begun to fall upon the first day of the week, 
after Moses had presented the necessities of the people 
before the Lord on the preceding sabbath. It fell for 



34 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

six consecutive days, and would not keep so as to be 
fit to eat on the next day after it fell. It had to be ga- 
thered fresh every morning. And yet on the sixth day 
the people, without any instruction in relation thereto, 
proceeded to gather double quantity on the sixth day. 
They probably saw that the supply that had fallen 
was double as much as on any other day, and inferred 
from this circumstance that it was designed to furnish 
them with food for the sabbath day. This was before 
the giving of the Law. The conduct of the people 
was approved by the Lord, as it evidently was founded 
upon their regard for his ordinances and their faith in 
his providence. He therefore declared that it was in 
accordance with his will concerning the sabbath, which 
being commemorative of his resting from his works 
of creation was a holyday unto him. Those who neg- 
lected to make this provision for the sabbath, and 
went out to gather manna on the seventh day, were 
severely rebuked for their impiety, which is spoken 
of as one of a long series of similar transgressions of 
commandments and laws already existing and known 
to them. The laws and commandments here referred 
to, and by which the sabbath was given to them, must 
have been such as had been from the beginning, and 
which were known and handed down from generation 
to generation. It follows then that the sabbath had 
been previously known to them as a Divine Institu- 
tion. It was an ordinance of the Lord, which his 
people had all along been accustomed to observe. It 
is not spoken of as an institution then first enjoined 
upon them, but as one that had always been in force 
from the creation of the world. But the circumstances 



[REDEMPTION'S working-day. 35 

in connection with, the giving of the manna were cal- 
culated to induce a greater regard for the sabbath, 
since so wonderful a provision was made for its ob- 
servance. It was calculated to impress upon their 
minds the sacredness in which the God of Israel re- 
garded the sabbath, and to prepare them for the spe- 
cial enactment concerning its observance under the 
Law. 

We may certainly conclude, then, that the sabbath 
had been strictly observed in the times before the 
law ; that Abel and Enoch and Noah, and all the 
people of God of the antediluvian age, observed it 
and kept it holy unto the Lord. That subsequently 
Noah and Shem, and Abraham and his seed, pepetu- 
ated its remembrance and delighted in its holy and 
sanctifying services. 

" Yes ! Messed sabbath morn, thy light 
Is affluent of pure delight 

To those who love thy rest ; 
Beyond thy sun, a heavenly ray 
Adds moral lustre to the day, 

And shines into the breast." 

2. THE SABBATH UNDEE THE LAW. 

As the sabbath was made for man, so it became 
man's duty to observe the sabbath. The reasons for 
the institution exist, as I have previously shown, in 
man's nature and relations, and give it the force of a 
moral obligation. It is absolutely necessary for man's 
good, necessary to the proper development of his re- 
ligious and spiritual nature ; necessary to the maturity 



36 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

and establishment of his moral character. It has, hence, 
been placed among man's moral duties. The Deca- 
logue, or ten commandments promulged from Sinai, 
was not then an act of new legislation. It was 
merely the formal utterance of principles which had 
existed as moral laws in the nature and relations of 
mankind from the beginning. They had always ex- 
isted, though man's depravity and ignorance had ob- 
scured his perception of them, and had almost 
obliterated them from his mind. In the line of the 
patriarchs and their adherents these principles were 
known, being revived in their minds from time to 
time by Divine interposition and revelation. And 
when the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, in the 
sight of all the people of Israel, to give them his stat- 
utes and ordinances, and to separate them unto him- 
self as a peculiar people above all the nations of the 
earth, he proclaimed the moral law as the basis or 
foundation of the entire civil and religious code which 
he was about to give them through the ministration 
of his servant Moses. The proclamation of the law 
was attended with the most impressive circumstances. 
For three days the people sanctified themselves ; and 
on the third day in the morning there were thunders 
and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, 
and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that 
all the people trembled. And Mount Sinai was alto- 
gether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon 
it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke 
of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. 
And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long and 
waxed louder and louder, Moses spake and God an- 



redemption's working-day. 37 

swered him by a voice. And God spake these words 
as the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, u Re- 
member THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY. Six 
days shalt thou labor and do all thy work ; but the 
seventh is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it 
thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor 
thy daughter, nor thy man servant, nor thy maid 
servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within 
thy gates ; for in six days the Lord made heaven and 
earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the 
seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh, 
day and hallowed it." 

Now observe that this command is incorporated 
with all other moral commands, and is therefore one 
of them, and they were all written by the finger of 
God upon tables of stone, to indicate their perpetual 
obligation. But these moral precepts, given in this 
formal manner to the Israelites only, were not binding 
on them exclusively; they are obligatory upon all 
mankind. All intelligent creatures, when placed in 
relations contemplated by the law, are bound to obey 
the law. It is obligatory upon all men to worship 
God and him only — to avoid idolatry and profanity, 
and equally so to remember the sabbath day to keep 
it holy. Cessation from worldly business and labor 
for the meat that perisheth, devotion to religious 
services in the worship of God, and the culture of the 
spiritual and moral powers and affections, are no less 
necessary to other men than to the Jew. All needed 
the sabbath, and the sabbath had from the beginning 
been given to all. But to meet an exigency which 
God foresaw would arise through the general defection 
4 



08 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOKD. 

of mankind from his worship and their prostitution to 
idolatry ; to provide a national depository for the ora- 
cles of truth ; to preserve the true religion from utter 
extinction, and to carry on by the best instrumentality 
the great work of redemption, God saw fit to call 
Abraham, and to separate his seed to himself as a pe- 
culiar people. In the promise made to him and his seed 
of the land of Canaan for an everlasting inheritance, and 
that in him and in his seed should all the families of the 
earth be blessed, was included the kingdom of heaven 
which God purposes to establish upon the earth, and 
of which the seed of Abraham are to be the heirs. 
The covenant thus made regarded primarily the seed 
of faith, who, begotten by the word of truth, are the 
children of promise, and shall be made kings and 
priests in that kindom. It also had respect to the na- 
tural seed, in whom it was to be tested whether it were 
practicable or not to prepare a nation in natural flesh 
for such a glorious destiny. "When therefore God 
essayed to go and take them " from the midst of an- 
other nation, by temptations, by signs, and by won- 
ders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a 
stretched out arm, and by great terrors," as he did in 
Egypt, it was to make himself known to them as the 
only living and true God, to instruct them and train 
them up for the inheritance, the everlasting possession 
of which was promised to them nationally on condi- 
tion that they should obey his voice and keep the 
statutes and commandments which he gave them. 
Hence to them in this relation pertained " the adop- 
tion, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving 
of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." 



redemption's working-day. 39 

These belonged to them nationally as long as their 
national trial lasted, and to no other nation. These 
belonged to them not absolutely but conditionally; 
and God separated them as a nation to himself, and 
nourished and instructed them in the wilderness, and 
planted them in the land of Canaan under laws and 
institutions, which if obeyed, would have insured to 
them the fulfillment of the promises and the possession 
of the glory. 

Among the ordinances which he gave them, the ob- 
servance of the sabbath in its connection with the wor- 
ship of God, and because of its moral and saving 
influence upon the hearts and the minds of the people, 
was made pre-eminent. Its observance was strictly 
enjoined upon them by special enactment and enforced 
by severe penalties. Thus God said, " Yerily my sab- 
bath ye shall keep ; for it is a sign between me and 
you, throughout your generations, that ye may know 
that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall 
keep the sabbath therefore ; for it is holy unto you : 
every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death ; 
for whosoever doth any work therein, that soul shall 
be cut off from among his people : Six days may work 
be done: but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, 
holy to the Lord, whosoever doth any work in the 
sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Where- 
fore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to 
observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for 
a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and 
the children of Israel forever : for in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day 
he rested and was refreshed." Ex. xxxi. 13-17. We 



40 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

can scarcely estimate the importance here attached to 
the observance of the sabbath by the nation of Israel. 
We may approximate thereto by a consideration of 
the nature and end of the sabbath as the sign of their 
national covenant. The end to be attained by the 
nation through a truly religious and devout observ- 
ance of the sabbath was their national sanctification 
in the flesh and consequent possession of the glory 
and blessedness of the kingdom of God. It was to 
be the means of attaining the highest degree of spir- 
itual life and the highest condition of dignity and hap- 
piness. It was therefore a crime of great turpitude 
to defile that holy day ; for it was to aim a deadly 
blow at the eternal life, blessedness and glory of the 
nation. The nation of Israel were, by the terms of 
the covenant God made with them, in a state of trial 
similar to that of Adam in the Garden of Eden. The 
covenant with Adam involved the life of all his seed 
to be perpetually prolonged by access to the tree of 
life on condition of his obedience ; but the penalty of 
his transgression was death to all : and the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil was the sign through 
which his obedience was tested. So in God's covenant 
with Israel the sabbath was chosen as the sign through 
which their obedience was tested. An unbroken ob- 
servance of the sabbath by the nation would have 
secured to them the everlasting possession of the king- 
dom and its glory ; but for its national profanation 
they were to be cut off therefrom. Individual defec- 
tion, if visited according to the command of God with 
the penalty of death by the national authority, would 
not vitiate the covenant. But if in their national capa- 



REDEMPTION S WORKING-DAY 41 

city they failed to execute the penalty from fear of 
or favor to the criminal, then the sin became national, 
and the covenant was broken. An instance illustra- 
tive of this is given in the case of the man who was 
found gathering sticks upon the sabbath day. And 
they that found him gathering sticks, brought him to 
Moses and Aaron and all the congregation ; and they 
put him in ward, because it was not declared what 
should be done unto him. The special enactment be- 
fore quoted had indeed declared that whosoever defiled 
the sabbath should be put to death, that whosoever did 
any work therein should be cut off from among his 
people ; but it had not been declared in what manner 
he should be executed. It was therefore referred to 
the Lord, and the answer to Moses was, "The man 
shall surely be put to death; all the congregation 
shall stone him with stones without the camp." It 
was to be the act of all the congregation. The crime 
he had committed was against the whole nation, and 
the nation were by their act to put away the evil from 
among them and free themselves from the guilt of 
polluting the sabbath. The national interests required 
it — the everlasting well-being of the whole congrega- 
tion required that this, as well as other violations 
of the covenant by individuals, should be punished 
with death. And a failure to execute the penalty 
would involve the nation in the guilt, and cause them 
to be cut off from the blessings of the covenant. 

The covenant God made with them as recorded in 

Ex. xix. 5, 6, " Now, therefore, if ye will obey my 

voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be 

a peculiar treasure unto me above all people : for all 

4* 



42 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOED. 

the earth is mine : and ye shall be unto me a kingdom 
of priests and a holy nation," extended throughout all 
their generations from the exode until the coming of 
the Messiah in the flesh to confirm the same ; but it 
was made ot renewed with each generation on condi- 
tion of their obeying his voice and keeping his cove- 
nant. But this they did not do: for God testifies 
against them by his prophet Ezekiel, that when he 
chose Israel in the land of Egypt and promised to be 
their God, and lifted up his hand to bring them forth 
out of Egypt into a land flowing with mil^: and honey, 
he said to them, " Cast ye away every man the abomi- 
nation of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the 
idols of Egypt." But they rebelled against him and 
would not hearken : yet he brought them into the 
wilderness and gave them statutes and showed them 
judgments, which if a man do he shall even live in 
them, that is, their life should be perpetually secured 
by their obedience ; and gave them his sabbaths to be 
a sign between him and them, in which their obe- 
dience should be tested, that they might know (prove) 
that he was the Lord that sanctified them. But the 
whole house of Israel rebelled against him in the wil- 
derness, walked not in his statutes, despised his judg- 
ments, and polluted his sabbaths ; so that generation 
was cut off, and the covenant was renewed with their 
children, whom he brought into the promised land, 
and to whom he said, " Walk not in the ways of your 
fathers, but walk in my statutes and keep my judg- 
ments and do them ; and hallow my sabbaths ; and 
they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may 
know that I am the Lord your God." But they like- 



redemption's working-day. 43 

wise rebelled and obeyed not the voice of the Lord, 
and polluted his sabbaths, and so generation after 
generation broke the covenant and were cut off, until 
at last the trial of the natural seed ended, and they 
have since been scattered among the nations, and dis- 
persed through the countries, as in lifting up his hand 
he declared they should be, because they executed not 
his jugments and despired his statutes, and polluted 
his sabbaths, and their eyes were after their idols, 
Ezek. xx. 2-24. 

Promises of national honor, glory r and blessedness 
were repeatedly made to them throughout their gene- 
rations, and in such terms as accord with the original 
covenant. Of this we have several instances recorded 
in the prophets. Thus in Isaiah lviii. 13, 14, after 
admonishing them to obey the statutes of the Lord, 
and promising a great reward corresponding to their 
faithfulness, he says, " If thou turn away thy foot from 
the sabbath,, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; 
and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, 
honorable ; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own 
ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking 
thine own words ; then shalt thou delight thyself in 
the Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high 
places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of 
Jacob thy father ; for the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken it." Here we have the renewal of the cove- 
nant to that generation in the promise of all its special 
blessings on condition that they would obey his voice 
and keep his sabbaths. If obedient, they were to pos- 
sess the high places of the earth — the supreme govern- 
ment of all nations, and enjoy the heritage of Jacob 



44 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

their father, embracing all the blessings of the cove- 
nant God had made with Abraham, and therefore the 
kingdom and greatness of the kingdom under the 
whole heaven. Again it is written, Jeremiah xvii. 
24, 25, " And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently 
hearken to me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden 
through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but 
hallow the sabbath day to do no work therein ; then 
shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and 
princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in 
chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the 
men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to- 
gether : and this city shall remain forever." In this 
place the covenant is again renewed with another 
generation with the promise of making them kings 
and princes in an everlasting polity on condition of 
their obedience. And had they kept the covenant, 
then the tabernacle of David had never fallen, and the 
kingdom of heaven would have been confirmed and 
established in their hands. Once more, in Psalm lxxxi. 
13-16, God says, u O that my people had hearkened 
unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I 
should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned 
my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the 
Lord should have submitted themselves unto him; 
but their time should have endured forever. He 
would have fed them also with the finest of wheat, 
and with honey out of the rock should I have satis- 
fied thee." Here we find that if they had fulfilled the 
conditions of the covenant, their enemies should have 
been subdued to their sway, the haters of the Lord 
should have been subjected and reconciled to his 



redemption's working-day. 45 

government through their instrumentality, and their 
time should have endured forever in the enjoyment of 
the richest blessings of grace and providence. And 
when at last the Messiah came, and the hills and vales 
of Judea resounded with the voice of one crying in 
the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
make his paths straight/' a final offer of the kingdom 
of heaven was made to the nation in the generation 
then living on condition of their repentance and bring- 
ing forth the fruits suitable thereto.. But they knew 
not the time of their gracious visitation,- They turned 
not from the iniquity of their doings,, and their sin 
reached its culmination in their willful and malicious 
rejection of the Messiah. Hence Jesus exclaimed, 
a Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the pro- 
phets and stonest them that are sent unto thee ! how 
often would I have gathered thy children together 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings, and ye would not ! Behold,, your house is left 
unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not 
see me henceforth, till ye shall say r . Blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord." Matthew xxiii. 37- 
39. " How often would I have gathered thy children 
together," refers to his reiterated offers of the salva- 
tion and glory of the kingdom to all their generations 
from the time in which he brought them out of 
Egypt until that moment in which he contemplated 
the desolation of their city and temple, and their long 
dispersion and tribulation. For he it was who was 
with them in the wilderness and went before them in 
the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire ; who gave 
them his laws and statutes from Mount Sinai, and ap- 



46 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

pointed the sabbath as the sign of their obedien se. 
He it was who brought them into the promised land 
and established his tabernacle among them, and sent 
them his prophets, rising up early and sending them. 
And he it was who, having become incarnate, wept 
over their continued disobedience and their conse- 
quent desolation and misery. Previous generations 
had broken the covenant, and the Divine judgments 
had fallen upon them ; but those judgments were not 
final, because the time of trial had to be prolonged 
from one generation to another until the Messiah 
should come. But when Christ had come and they 
had consummated their national unbelief and dis- 
obedience by rejecting and crucifying him, the wrath 
came upon them to the uttermost, and they w^ere cut 
off and dispersed among the nations, until at the time 
of the second advent of Christ, they shall be restored, 
and shall, on beholding him coming in the glory of his 
Father, say, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name 
of the Lord." 

We see, then, in connection with their national cove- 
nant and trial, how important the sabbath was to 
them, being made the sign and test of their obedience. 
Nehemiah, when he was governor of Judea, says, 
"In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine- 
presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and 
lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs and all 
manner of burdens which they brought into Jeru- 
salem on the sabbath day. And I testified against 
them in the day wherein they sold victuals. There 
dwelt men of Tyre also therein which brought fish, 
and all manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath unto 



redemption's working-day. 47 

the children of Judah and in Jerusalem. Then I 
contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto 
them, What evil is this that ye do, and profane the 
sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did 
not our God bring all this evil upon us and upon this 
city ? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by pro- 
faning the sabbath." Neh. xiii. 15-18. It was this 
national desecration of the sabbath which, from gene- 
ration to generation, brought upon them the wrath of 
God. Not that this was their only sin, or even their 
chief sin; for other and greater sins are charged 
against them ; but the sabbath having been selected 
as a sign or test, its proper sanctification would have 
been proof of their obedience in other matters also ; 
and its desecration was a manifest evidence of their 
rebellion and wickedness. When they profaned the 
sabbath, it was a proof that they obeyed not the 
voice of the Lord and kept not his covenant. Hence 
the Lord said, " If ye will not hearken unto me to 
hallow the sabbath, and not to bear "a burden, even 
entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath 
day : then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and 
it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall 
not be quenched." Jeremiah xvii. 27. And so at 
last when their trial terminated as already shown, the 
Jewish nationality was totally subverted, and their 
city and country have ever since been trodden down 
of the gentiles : the fire has devoured their palaces 
and they are a dispersed and afflicted people. 

But as their national covenant could not be vitiated 
by the sin or transgressions of individuals as long as 
they executed the judgments of God against such ; so 



48 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

the blessings of the covenant were not forfeited to those 
who believed in and obeyed God by the national infi- 
delity : " For what if some did not believe, shall their 
•unbelief make the faith of God without effect ? By 
no means." God is true to his covenant of grace, 
and faithful to his promise in Christ. And in all 
generations there has been a remnant who by faith 
have been justified before God, and to whom the ful- 
fillment of the promise is pledged. Hence the Lord 
said, "Keep ye judgment and do justice; for my sal- 
vation is near to come, and my righteousness to be 
revealed. Blessed is the man that doth this, and the 
son of man that layeth hold upon it, that keepeth the 
sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from 
doing any evil. Nether let the son of the stranger 
that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, 
The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people ; 
neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I ani a dry tree. 
For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep 
my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, 
and take hold of my covenant ; even unto them will 
I give in my house, and within my walls, a place and 
a name better than of sons and daughters. I will give 
them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. 
Also the sons of the strangers that join themselves 
unto the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of 
the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth 
the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my 
covenant ; even them will I bring to my holy moun- 
tain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer." 
Isa. lvi. 1-7. Thus we learn that notwithstanding 
God foresaw that the result of the national trial of the 



redemption's working-day. 49 

natural seed would terminate in their rejection in con- 
sequence of their continued violation of the covenant 
throughout their generations, still their unbelief as a 
nation has not rendered void the promise of God in 
relation to individuals; but provision was made in 
accordance with foreknowledge for the salvation of all 
who believed in God's word ; not only of the natural seed, 
but also of strangers — others than Israelites — who be- 
came sincere proselytes, and joined themselves to 
the Lord, kept the sabbath, and took hold of the 
covenant. And with this agrees the saying, u Though 
Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant shall 
be saved." 

The sabbath is Eedemption's working-day, and 
divinely appointed to be such to the Jewish people 
nationally and individually. By a strict obedience to 
the Lord's commands, in walking in his statutes and 
ordinances, executing his judgments and hallowing 
his sabbaths, it was in their power as a nation to 
have obtained the kingdom, to have been made a pe- 
culiar people unto the Lord above all the nations of 
the earth, to have been made a kingdom of priests 
and a holy nation. That was the prize set before 
them and promised to them on their fulfillment of the 
terms of the covenant. "But their heart was not 
right with him, neither were they steadfast in his 
covenant." Instead therefore of working out their 
national redemption, they brought upon themselves 
the curses written in the book, and were finally ex- 
cluded from the blessings of the covenant. Their re- 
jection was their own fault, as is seen in the fact that 
some of Israel have in every generation through faith 
5 



50 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

taken hold of the covenant and have received the 
promise of eternal life. And what some have done, 
all might have done. The sabbath and the moral 
influences associated therewith have not been em- 
ployed in vain by any one desirous of working out 
his salvation before God ; for through those instrumen- 
talities God wrought in them to will and to do of his 
good pleasure. 

The first and most important point in regard to the 
sabbath was to sanctify it. " Remember the sabbath day 
to keep it holy." This command related to its use as a 
day of special religious services. On this day the 
priests sacrificed two lambs for a burnt-offering, with 
wine and meal, and placed on the golden table 
twelve new loaves of show-bread in place of the stale 
ones, which were then removed. These loaves repre- 
sented the twelve tribes, who could not all appear 
personally in the temple, but who kept the sabbath 
in their places of abode or dwellings. And the bread 
was called the bread of faces or bread of the presence, 
because,, representing the twelve tribes, it was designed 
to indicate their appearing in the presence of the 
Lord every sabbath day. And the pious Jew knew 
that, as he worshiped in a distant part of the land 
with his face toward the temple, he was thus repre- 
sented by the fresh cakes on the golden table every 
sabbath and through the whole week. Every tribe 
and every individual belonging to the tribe was em- 
braced in this representation, and every one knew the 
hours appointed for sacrifice and prayer, and could 
join in the worship wherever he might be ; for he 
who dwelt between the cherubim, was everywhere 



redemption's working-day. 51 

present to accept the offerings of the sincere wor- 
shiper, " The eyes of the Lord are in every place, 
beholding the evil and the good." The sabbath was 
further appropriately spent in doing good works ; in 
prayer, thanksgiving and praise ; in the study of the 
law of God, and in devout and heavenly contempla- 
tions of his nature, character, perfections and pur- 
poses. 

The next point was that it should be strictly kept 
as a day of rest from all secular employment. It was 
not lawful for any one to pursue his business or trade 
on that day. Every occupation of a worldly charac- 
ter was prohibited. It was not even allowed to kindle 
a fire for the purpose of cooking or performing any 
menial or servile labor. The man-servant and maid- 
servant were to rest as well as their master, and everv 
preparation to that end was to be made on the pre- 
vious day, which was therefore called the day of pre- 
paration. Works of necessity and mercy only were 
allowed. They might feed and water their cattle. 
or if any of their animals fell into a pit, they might 
lift it out. Jesus, who understood the true nature 
and extent of the law, and who did always those 
things which were acceptable to God, performed 
works of benevolence, such as healing the sick and 
curing the lame and the blind; and laid down the 
maxim in opposition to the superstition of the Phari- 
sees, that it was lawful to do good on the sabbath 
days. 

Now, though the nation was delinquent in enforcing 
as it should the law of the sabbath, and broke the 
covenant, forfeiting all right to the distinguished bless- 



52 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

ings promised to them as a nation; yet such per- 
sons as remembered the sabbath in this manner, ab- 
staining from all work or secular employment, and 
employing its sacred hours in the service of God and 
humanity, found that the sabbath was pre-eminently 
conducive to their sanctification and the promotion of 
their religious and spiritual advancement. They thus 
attained to the end of its institution, and their faith 
took hold of the promised rest which remaineth to 
the people of God. They all, indeed, died in faith, 
not having received the promises, but having seen 
them afar off, were persuaded of them and embraced 
them. They looked for their fulfillment at the time 
of the better resurrection which they anticipated, as 
secured by the promise itself to all who being the seed 
of faith shall be blessed with faithful Abraham. The 
sabbath was a sign between them and God, and it 
shed upon them the sanctifying influences of a gloriouo 
hope, which nerved their souls with strength in trial, 
armed them with patience in suffering, made them 
more than conquerors over the world, and cheered 
them in their last moments. 

But it had this effect only upon those who had 
faith in the promises, and whose obedience was the 
offspring of faith. A mere formal, legal, and hypo- 
critical observance of that day produced no such effect. 
And such an observance of the day was not accept- 
able to God. All religious services to be accepted of 
him must be sincere. He says in Isa. i. 13, "Bring 
no more vain oblations — incense is an abomination unto 
me — the new moons and sabbaths and the calling of 
assemblies I cannot away with." God did not ordain 



redemption's wooking-day. 53 

these things merely for the sake of them, or because 
he had any pleasure in them ; but he ordained them 
as modes of giving expression to faith, and as means 
of sincere and true worship. When offered in faith ; 
when attended to with a devout and sincere mind, 
they had a pleasing savor ; but otherwise they were 
an abomiation; 

11 For Grod abhors the sacrifice 

Where not the heart is found.'' 

In the time of our Saviour the scribes and Pharisees 
were very strict in their legal observance of the sab- 
bath as a day of cessation from labor, as well as punc- 
tilious in their attention to other rites and ceremonies ; 
but their religion was all an outside show, a little 
gilding over the surface while all within was rotten. 
There was no faith at bottom ; there was no spirituality 
in their religion. It was merely a form and possessed 
no life-giving power. Their religion was a mere cloak 
with which they sought to conceal their robbery, ex- 
tortion and uncleanness. But they who sanctified the 
sabbath according to the Divine command, were sanc- 
tified in turn by its reflex influence upon their minds 
and hearts. They were elevated to a higher and holier 
atmosphere of love and duty. They had communion 
and fellowship with God, and found the sabbath a de- 
light, in which they seemed to taste of the powers of 
the world to come. 

"The All-beneficent 
Cares for man's better nature, and has given 
The sabbath-rest to lead his thoughts to heaven. 

5* 



54: THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

Myriads of thanks for this divinest gift, 
For this perpetually recurring day— 

Wherein both rich and poor — bond — free — can lift 
Their hopes above this fading world, and pray." 

R. J. Eames. 

3. THE SABBATH UNDER THE GOSPEL. 

The sabbath is redemption's working-day. It was 
originally set apart for man's use and benefit, as neces- 
sary for the proper development of his religious and 
moral nature, even in a state of innocence. It be- 
came still a greater necessity after his fall into sin, 
inasmuch as his condition then presented greater ob- 
structions to the culture of his inward and spiritual 
life. Man had to be redeemed from sin ; and in the 
work of redemption, the sabbath could not be dis- 
pensed with. I have shown that it must have been 
known and observed before the giving of the Law on 
Mount Sinai. Eusebius says, "Almost all the phi- 
losophers and poets acknowledge the seventh day as 
holy." And Philo says, "The seventh day is a festi- 
val to every nation." And when the Lord separated 
unto himself the children of Israel, the seed of Abra- 
ham his friend, for a special purpose, he constituted 
the sabbath as a sign between himself and them, a 
test of their obedience in relation to the covenant he 
made with them when he took them by the hand to 
bring them out of Egypt. But the children of Israel 
did not keep the sabbath. Generation after generation 
broke the covenant, and thus was demonstrated the im- 
practicability of sanctifying a nation in natural flesh, 
for the glory and blessedness of the kingdom. The 



redemption's working-day. 55 

law, including not only the moral precepts of tlie 
decalogue, but also the whole civil and ecclesiastical 
code of Israel, was given as the only means whereby 
they could nationally be sanctified and prepared for 
the commitment to them of the Divine government 
over the world. Obedience to the law was the only 
ground of justification nationally. The result of their 
trial showed that by the deeds of the law shall no 
flesh living be justified in the sight of God. The 
seed of Abraham was as good a seed and as well, if 
not better, adapted for such a trial as any that fallen 
humanity could furnish. Indeed,, their election of 
God for the purpose of trial is sufficient evidence that 
there were none better. It was not necessary, there- 
fore, on their failure, to make trial of any other nation 
in like manner. The result would have been the 
same. A mason, wishing stone of a particular quality 
chooses the best he can find in the quarry, and if it 
stand not the test, he does not deem it necessary to 
try every stone separately, but rejects the whole ; so 
God having tried one nation of men in natural flesh, 
has in them tested and rejected all nations. The trial 
of any other would only have furnished additional 
evidence of the fact that " flesh and blood," or men 
in natural flesh, " cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God." None can be qualified in natural flesh to be 
kings and priests in that kingdom. This is the great 
truth demonstrated by the trial of the natural seed 
of Abraham. This was foreseen by the Omniscient 
One, and provision was made for the justification, 
sanctification, and final salvation of a righteous seed 
on entirely different grounds. For what the law could 



56 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOKD. 

not do in that it was weak or inefficient through the 
flesh ; not weak in itself — the provisions of the law 
were adequate to the end proposed — but weak on ac- 
count of human depravity and corruption; what, 
through this weakness, the law could not do, God 
otherwise accomplished through the gift of his Son, 
whom he sent to be the propitiation for our sins, that 
by faith in him we might be justified from all things 
from which we could not be justified by the deeds of 
the law. The foundation for justification on this plan 
was laid in the revelation of the Divine purpose by 
the declaration that the seed of the woman should 
bruise the serpent's head, and also by the promise to 
Abraham, that in him and in his seed should all the 
families of the earth be blessed. Thus the Gospel was 
before the law, and from Abel down to Moses there 
was a seed of faith ; believers in the promise being 
counted for the seed. And after the giving of the 
law, while the Jewish nation were tried as to their 
ability to justify themselves by the deeds of the law, 
individuals of the nation, believing in the promise, 
were justified by faith. For the law which was added 
for the trial of the natural seed was not against the 
promise of God ; but only more clearly demonstrated 
the necessity of the promise, and served as a school- 
master to bring them to Christ. The plan of justifi- 
cation by faith was not rendered imperative by the 
law. It continued in force, and by it a remnant of 
Israel was saved, and constituted a chosen, sanctified 
and peculiar company. Israel were not all saved, 
though all might have been saved by faith. Their 
failure to attain the qualifications necessary to inherit 



exemption's woeking-day. 57 

the kingdom in natural flesh, was no bar to their be- 
coming heirs thereof in spiritual and glorified bodies 
through faith. Those who did believe were made 
heirs, and all might have believed ; but they, ignorant 
of God's righteousness — of his plan of justifying the 
ungodly — went about to establish their own righteous- 
ness — seeking justification by the deeds of the law — 
not submitting themselves to the righteousness of God. 
Hence they were broken off, through or on account 
of unbelief. Their unbelief left them powerless 
against the corruption of their own hearts. Their un- 
belief shut them up in the darkness of their own 
minds. Their unbelief made the word of God of no 
effect unto them; so that it did them no good, not 
being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Their 
unbelief made their table a snare and a stumbling 
block unto them, and the provision intended for 
their good became their overthrow — the occasion of 
their condemnation. And thus their national trial 
ended in their rejection as a nation, and rendered ne- 
cessary a change of dispensation. Many of the natural 
branches had been broken off because of unbelief, and 
God determined to graft in upon the stock as many 
of the gentiles as should believe the Gospel, to sup- 
ply their place in the coming kingdom. Hence the 
Gospel dispensation was instituted to take out of the 
gentiles a people for his name, who, together with the 
saved of Israel, shall at last be made a royal priest- 
hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to whom the 
administration of the kingdom may in wisdom and 
righteousness be committed. Hence the Gospel is 
preached for the obedience of the faith among all na- 



58 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

tions. And whosoever believeth becomes identified 
with Christ, is grafted into the good olive tree, is one 
of Abraham's seed, and an heir according to the 
promise. Under this new regime, the sabbath is still 
Exemption's working-day. The fourth command- 
ment has not been abrogated. The sabbath is still to 
be observed. Its use as a day of cessation from labor 
and business, and appropriation to our religious and 
moral culture, is as much needed as ever. But the 
sabbath is not now a sign to us, as it was to the Jew 
during the time of his national trial ; for we are not 
to be saved by the deeds of the law, but by the hear- 
ing of faith. No nation is now upon trial for the king- 
dom. The trial of man in the flesh is at an end. 
But the sabbath remains to us a moral precept, requir- 
ing that we should rest from weekly toil and conse- 
crate the seventh of our time to the public worship 
of God, and the improvement of our moral and reli- 
gious nature. 

It is indeed true that the observance of the sabbath 
is nowhere expressly enjoined in the New Testament, 
and nowhere mentioned, except to redeem it from the 
austerities imposed upon it by human traditions, or to 
show that Christians are not to observe it in its legal 
and Jewish aspect.. It is no longer to be regarded as 
a sign or test of obedience to law in a national trial for 
the sanctifying of the flesh; but it has the same moral 
bearing that it had before the law, and under the law. 
It comes to us as a Divine institution, required by 
man's nature, and designed for man's benefit. It 
comes to us sanctioned by the same authority which 
commands us to worship the only living and true God. 



redemption's working-day. 59 

to avoid idolatry and eschew profanity. Christianity 
does not raise us above the need of the sabbath, it sim- 
ply changes its legal aspect, and consecrates it to our 
use in the promotion of our highest and best interests 
without bringing us into bondage. The sabbath, re- 
garded by the Jew as the sign of the covenant God 
bad made with his nation, and the test of his obedience 
to that covenant, was invested with an aspect of su- 
perstitious dread. He ceased to labor, he rested from 
his secular business only to feel more severely the 
bondage of the law. He feared to do any thing on 
the sabbath, though it were demanded by every con- 
sideration of humanity and goodness, lest he should 
thereby pollute the day and break the covenant. In- 
stead of its being a delight, the sabbath becomes irk- 
some to him. The carnal mind is not subject to the 
law of God, neither indeed can be. His inward 
thought was expressed in such language as this, " Be- 
hold what a weariness it is ! When will the sabbath 
be gone, that we may buy and sell and get gain ?" It 
was the natural man developed into the morose, un- 
bending Pharisee, striving to compensate for the lack 
of judgment, mercy, and faith, by the rigidity of his 
observance of rites and ceremonies, which he felt to 
be a burden. Such was the Jew who was one out- 
wardly and who served in the oldness of the letter. 
And to such the sabbath wore an aspect of severity 
and gloom. Its service was an unwilling tribute paid 
to an exacting despot. Arraying himself in the habit 
of a starched formality, he trod with scrupulous exact- 
ness the round of its legal ceremonies. Far different 
was its aspect to the believer — to the one who was a 



60 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

Jew inwardly — whose delight was in the law of the 
Lord after the inner man. To him the sabbath was a 
delight and honorable, and its services were the re- 
joicing of his soul. And when the lengthening 
shadows told its departure, he loved to linger in its 
twilight shades and protract the sweet intercourse he 
held with God. The natural man, who was laboring 
to justify himself in the external observance of the 
law, whose spirituality he understood not, found the 
sabbath an oppressive burden. And to the natural 
seed of Abraham, such, in its legal aspect, the sabbath 
really was — a burden which they were unable to bear, 
because of the weakness of the flesh. That use of the 
sabbath, however, ceased on the termination of the trial 
of the natural seed; and this is perhaps the rea- 
son why the observance of the sabbath is nowhere 
•enjoined by express command in the New Testament, 
as well as a reason why the time of its observance was 
changed from the seventh day to the first day of the 
week; circumstances in connection with our subject 
which require special consideration. 

It will not escape the observation of the diligent 
and careful student of the Scriptures, that the transi- 
tion from the Jewish dispensation to the Christian was 
not sudden and violent, but gradual and dispassionate. 
Jesus merely indicated such a change in his parables 
and by passing allusions ; as for instance in the reference 
he made to Elijah's being sent to Zarephath or Sarepta 
to a gentile woman — and also in the parable of the 
great supper, wherein the first invited guests being 
found unworthy, the servants were sent forth into the 
highways and hedges to persuade others to come in. 



redemption's working-day. 61 

And He said to his disciples, "I have yet many things 
to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. How- 
beit, when he the Spirit of Truth is come, he will 
guide you into all truth. 7 ' His parable, that u new 
wine must not be put into old bottles (skins) else the 
bottles will burst and the wine be spilled, but new 
wine must be put into new bottles (skins) and both 
are preserved," was designed to teach them that his 
doctrines could not be received by the Jewish mind. 
Their prejudices were too strong for the reception of 
the truths concerning the rejection of the natural seed 
and the calling of the gentiles. Their enlightenment 
on these points was left to the operation of the facts 
themselves as evolved in the dispensation of his pro- 
vidence, and to the special influence of the Spirit in 
connection with those facts. The first Christians were 
all Jews, or proselytes of Judaism, and were exceed- 
ingly zealous of the law. It required a special reve- 
lation to induce Peter to go and preach Jesus Christ 
to Cornelius and his friends who were gentiles. And 
nothing else but a conviction of his being thus 
divinely directed by a vision from heaven to do so, 
silenced the opposition of the circumcision, and ex- 
torted the confession, " Then hath God also to the 
gentiles granted repentance unto life." But so late as 
the middle of the first century there were many who 
taught " that it was needful to circumcise" the gentile 
converts, " and to command them to keep the law of 
Moses," which being strenuously opposed by Paul, 
the question was referred to the apostles and elders for 
their decision. 

Now among the peculiarities of the Jewish economy 
6 



62 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

was the legal use of the sabbath as a sign of their na- 
tional covenant and a test of their obedience to its 
requirements. This use had for ages become asso- 
ciated with the seventh day of the week ; and any 
command of Christ or of his apostles to perpetuate 
the observance of this day would have been almost, 
if not quite, tantamount to a sanction of its legal use, 
and would have carried with it, and imposed on the 
Christian church, the entire burden of the national 
covenant of which the sabbath was the sign. On this 
ground I account, and I think satisfactorily, for the 
absence of any such command. It was not intended 
that such a use of the sabbath should be continued ; 
for such use was contrary to the genius of the Gospel, 
and would have subverted the main doctrine of salva- 
tion — justification by faith. It would have drawn 
along with it all the positive and ceremonial ob- 
servances of Judaism, and have set all men upon seek- 
ing justification by the deeds of the law. It might 
also have imposed upon the church the Eabbinical 
-traditions. The Jewish idea was, that man was made 
for -fee sabbath ; that the institution was an arbitrary 
one, to which, man was absolutely subjected and which 
naust be observed M> any sacrifice of comfort and even 
of life itself. The example and teaching of Christ 
was designed to show that the sabbath was made for 
man, and that it was lawfel £o do good and promote 
the comfort, health and well-being of man on that 
day. He fulfilled the law of the sabbath according to 
its original constitution, and left us the light of his 
example and teachings ; but gave no command for 
the observance of the day. In this, also, he appears 



redemption's working-day. 63 

to have anticipated tlie change of the day from the 
seventh to the first of the week, as that on which the 
sabbath should be observed during the Christian dis- 
pensation. There was danger that even in the ab- 
sence of a command, the continued observance of the 
same day would have perpetuated its legal use under 
the law, and thus have imposed upon Christians the 
covenant of which it was the sign. But the change 
was not made at once by positive enactment. It was 
left to the teachings of the Spirit under the facts and 
revelations of the new dispensation. The Jewish mind 
was not prepared for the change all at once. It had 
to be gradually schooled into the new faith, and trained 
to the new practice. 

The first thing, then, was the designation of an- 
other day in which Christians should rest from their 
secular business and attend to their spiritual interests. 
This was done in the most effective manner by the 
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead 
on the morning of the first day of the week. This 
was the most stupendous fact of redemption, the very 
foundation of our faith and hope in Christ, and pre- 
eminently adapted on account of its reviving, consol- 
ing and sanctifying influences to be associated with 
the sabbath day. During the seventh day of the 
week, Jesus, the Lord of life and glory, lay dead in 
the sepulchre. It was to the natural seed their last 
sabbath, and it was a cancelled one. The day before 
was the preparation, and, had they received him as 
their Messiah, it might have been the day of his glo- 
rious coronation, and of their exaltation with him in 
the glory of his kingdom ; but instead, they denied 



64: THE SABBATH AND ITS LOED. 

him, and desired a murderer to be delivered unto 
them, and killed the Prince of life, requiring, with 
loud voices, that he should be crucified. And the 
soldiers arrayed him in cast-off purple robes, crowned 
him with an acanthus wreath, put a reed in his hands 
for a sceptre, and mocked him, bowing the knee and 
saying, "Hail ! King of the Jews!" Then they cru- 
cified him, and Jesus, just before he dismissed his 
spirit, cried, with a loud voice, " It is finished !" The 
trial of the natural seed was completed. Their unbe- 
lief and rejection of him was consummated in that 
final scene of the mockery and crucifixion. The cove- 
nant, which had been broken by generation after 
generation, was annulled forever. The Aaronic priest- 
hood was abrogated, and the sacrificial rites and offer- 
ings for the purifying of the flesh were abolished. 
The hand-writing of ordinances was nailed to his 
cross, and the enmity contained therein was taken out 
of the way. The vail of the temple was rent from 
top to bottom, and their house was left unto them de- 
solate. And on the seventh day, which symbolized 
their promised rest, and concerning which God had 
said, " This is the rest whereby ye may cause the 
weary to rest, and this is the refreshing, yet they 
would not hear," the crucified Messiah- lay dead in the 
sepulchre, to indicate that as the sign of their national 
covenant it was utterly abolished, and that they had 
failed to attain that which it signified. They were as 
a nation rejected and their sabbath was at an end. 
The thing signified was taken from them and the 
sign was withdrawn. In their estimation that Sab- 
bath was a high day. They had killed the heir and 



redemption's working-day. 65 

seized on his inheritance. And for fear that his body 
might be stolen from the sepulchre, they had sealed 
the stone and set a watch. They rejoiced to think 
that the only one who seemed to be in the way of their 
national supremacy and glory was cut off; for they 
knew not that his death dissolved the relation in which 
they stood by virtue of the flesh, and transferred 
the promise of the covenant to the seed of faith, who 
were, even then, keeping that sabbath in sorrow and 
dismay. They had trusted that it was he who should 
have redeemed Israel, but their expectations were cut 
off with him, and their hopes were sealed up in his 
tomb. They still thought of national redemption for 
the natural seed in the flesh. It was therefore a day 
of rebuke and mourning to them. Their faith in him 
encouraged them still to look for some light to arise 
in their obscurity, and in the end of the sabbath, as it 
began to dawn toward the first day of the week, he 
rose from the dead. Then they were begotten again 
to a lively hope. Then life and immortality were illus- 
trated and a new order of things was introduced. 
And though their question, Wilt thou at this time 
restore again the kingdom to Israel? indicated that 
they still indulged some hope of Israel according to 
the flesh, they soon learned that the flesh was repu- 
diated, and that the children of promise alone were 
counted for the seed. A new dispensation of grace 
began, which shone first, indeed, upon Israel, but was 
designed for all people, and in which the Gospel was 
to be preached for the obedience of faith among all 
nations. During this period, the first day of the 
week, in which all true believers meet for religious 
6* 



66 THE SABBATH AXD ITS LOUD. 

worship and spiritual edification ; is the divinely insti- 
tuted sabbath. I say divinely instituted, for it was 
on the first day that Jesus, having risen from the 
dead, appeared in the midst of his disciples when they 
were assembled together, and said, " Peace be unto 
you." This was the first of a series of weekly mani- 
festations to them upon that day. Nor is it intimated 
that he ever appeared to them on the seventh day, 
though they doubtless observed it as the sabbath. 
Indeed, no further notice is taken of the seventh day 
as a sabbath in the Gospel, except to show that it is 
not obligatory on Christians to observe it The meet- 
ing with his disciples on the first day of the week was 
repeated, no doubt, in order to show that it was not 
by accident, but designedly, to indicate its substitu- 
tion as a sabbath instead of the seventh day. And by 
these weekly manifestations the principle was estab- 
lished, and the disciples continued ever after to meet 
together,, on. the first day of the week, for the 
worship of God and to observe the institutions 
of Christ. Hence also this day which, on account of 
Christ's resurrection, and his manifestations thereon, 
prior to his ascension, was called the Lord's day, 
was kept as a religious festival, a day of rest from 
secular business^ a sabbath unto the Lord. It was on 
this day that the Pentecost occurred, and in which the 
disciples being assembled with one accord in one 
place, were baptized with the Holy Ghost, and through 
the ministrations of the word, three thousand were 
converted to God. It was on this day that they 
assembled that they might show forth the Lord's 
death in the breaking of bread, and rejoice together 



redemption's working-day. 67 

in the hope to which they were begotten again by hia 
resurrection. 

By all the early Jewish Christians the seventh day 
was likewise observed according to the law ; hence 
they kept two sabbaths every week. I say two sab- 
baths, for the term sabbath was not exclusively ap- 
plied to the seventh day even under the law, though 
that was the regularly recurring weekly sabbath of 
rest. But we find from Lev. xxiii. 24, that the first 
day of the seventh month was a sabbath,, and from 
Lev. xvi. 31, that the tenth day of the same month 
was a sabbath, and both of these could not come on 
the seventh day of the week, and it might frequently 
happen that neither of them would occur on that day. 
They were called sabbaths, because they were holy 
festivals in which secular business was laid aside, and 
divine services performed. All festivals were so 
called, and they had not only other sabbatical days 
besides the seventh day ; but they had also sabbatical 
weeks and sabbatical years.. To the early Jewish 
Christians, then, the first day of the week became a 
sabbath associated with their faith in Christ and ob- 
servance of his ordinances. The seventh-day sabbath 
was altogether associated with their Jewish faith and 
observance of Jewish rites and ceremonies. The 
seventh day was their national festival, which they 
were not yet prepared to relinquish. The first day 
was their Christian festival which they uniformly ob- 
served as a sabbath in honor of Christ. Such was 
the state of things when the Gospel was first preached 
to the gentiles.. 

Now we find that the gentile believers in Christ 



68 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

were accustomed to meet together on the first day of 
the week for religious worship, and no mention is 
made of their ever meeting together on the seventh 
day. It was on the first day they regularly assembled 
to commemorate Christ's death in the breaking of 
bread, and for the ministration of the word and other 
devotional exercises. It was on the first day of the 
week, when the disciples at Troas came together to 
break bread, that Paul preached unto them. He had 
arrived there on the second day of the week, and 
abode with them seven days, that he might have the 
opportunity of spending a Christian sabbath with 
them, and minister to them the word of salvation. 
Had they observed the seventh day as a sabbath, 
doubtless mention would have been made of it, and 
Paul might have preached to them on that day, as 
well as on the first day. See Acts xx. 6-7, In writ- 
ing to the Corinthians, First Epistle, xvi. 1, 2, Paul 
directs them to put their contributions for the poor 
saints at Jerusalem, into the treasury on the first day 
of the week, implying that they were accustomed to 
meet together on that day, which is, indeed, a fact 
beyond dispute. It is then a legitimate inference that 
the gentiles, on their conversion to Christianity, were 
taught to observe the first day of the week as the 
sabbath. And hence it has been regarded and ob- 
served as such from the beginning of the Christian 
era. 

But the Jewish Christians,, who were so zealous of 
the law, and who said that it was needful that the 
gentile believers should be circumcised and keep the 
law of Moses, sought to impose upon them the ob- 



redemption's working-day. 69 

servance of the seventh day also, and with it the rites 
and ceremonies of Judaism. This was resolutely re- 
sisted by the apostle Paul who, in his letter to the 
Colossians (ii. 16,) says, "Let no man, therefore, 
judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a 
holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath." 
Here he classes the sabbath, the seventh day of the 
week, along with other holydays and festivals of the 
Jewish economy, and exhorts believers to keep free 
from any superstitious regard to them, as they were 
only shadows of good things to come, of which Christ 
is the substance, and not to suffer others to condemn 
them on account of not observing those institutions 
of an obsolete economy. This exhortation is also 
based upon a premise previously stated, that Jesus had 
" blotted out the hand- writing of ordinances that was 
against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out 
of the way, nailing it to his cross." Now this hand- 
writing was the Jewish national covenant of which 
the sabbath was made the sign. While that covenant 
remained, it was against the gentiles, who, as long as 
the trial of the natural seed continued and their cove- 
nant was in force, could be partakers of the blessing 
of the promise, only by becoming proselytes of Ju- 
daism. But this hand-writing which was against us 
was taken away by the death of Christ, which termi- 
nated the trial of the natural seed in the flesh, and 
procured forgiveness of sins and justification for all 
believers. Hence all who believe in him are justified 
by faith without the deeds of the law, and are liber- 
ated from all obligation to obey the ritual of Judaism, 
or observe its sabbatical days, months, and years. 



70 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

And so important was it, that the gentile Christians 
should stand fast in this liberty wherewith Christ had 
made them free, that he tells the Galatians (iv. 9-11,) 
that in consequence of their observance of the sacred 
festivals of Judaism, in compliance with the instruc- 
tions of the Judaizing teacher, he was afraid of them 
lest he had bestowed upon them labor in vain : for by 
turning from the Gospel liberty to the seventh-day 
sabbath and other Jewish observances, they plainly 
declared that they were seeking to be justified by the 
works of the law, and were fallen from grace. 

The apostle did not interfere with the Jewish 
Christians in their continued regard for the seventh 
day and their practice of other Jewish rites. He only 
withstood the attempt of the zealots of law to impose 
that burden upon the gentiles. The Jew who believed 
in Christ might deem it expedient still to carry the 
burden ; but there was no propriety in forcing it upon 
the gentiles, seeing "that a man is not justified by the 
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." 
It had been definitely settled at Jerusalem, on the 
question concerning circumcision, that no such bur- 
den should be imposed on them who from among the 
gentiles had turned to God ; and that Paul, having 
been called of God to that special ministry, should go 
to the gentiles and regulate the religious institutions 
to be observed by them according to the Gospel which 
he had received of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and that 
the other apostles should have the regulation of the 
ordinances and customs to be observed by the circum- 
cision. Hence in his letter to the Eomans (xiv. 5, 6,) 
lie says, " One man (the Jewish Christian) esteemeth 



redemption's working-day. 71 

one day (the seventh) above another: another man 
(the gentile Christian) esteemeth every day alike. Let 
every many be fully persuaded in his own mind. lie 
that regardeth the day (the seventh) regardeth it unto 
the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day (the 
seventh), to the Lord he regardeth it not." Those 
Jewish believers who held the seventh day as sacred 
and observed it as a sabbath, did so out of regard to 
the command of God in relation to their national 
covenant. It was far better that they should do so 
than that they should violate their conscience. But 
the gentiles, with whom no such national covenant 
was made, esteemed every day alike, and hence did 
not attach any sacredness to the seventh day, and did 
not observe it as the sabbath ; feeling satisfied in their 
mind that the moral precept in respect to the sanctifi- 
cation of one day out of every seven for religious 
purposes and rest from secular business, was as ac- 
ceptably obeyed in the observance of the first day of 
the week as on the seventh. And they observed the 
first instead of the seventh, out of regard to the au- 
thority of the Lord of the sabbath, by whom the 
change of the day had been designated. We thus 
learn that the command of the decalogue which re- 
quires us to remember the sabbath day to keep it 
holy, is no less applicable to the first day of the week 
or the Lord's day under the Christian dispensation 
than it was to the seventh day under the Jewish dis- 
pensation. The apostle's argument being not against 
the keeping of the sabbath, which is a moral precept ; 
but in vindication of the gentile Christians who ob- 
served the first day of the week, and not the seventh, 



72 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOED. 

as their sabbath. It is probable that the Jewish 
Christians observed the seventh day as well as the 
first until the destruction of Jerusalem, when the 
nationality of Israel was destroyed, after which the 
seventh day ceased to be observed by even the 
Jewish Christians, and the first day received the 
name of the sabbath, and has ever since continued 
to be observed as such by the Christian church. 

Thus the change of the day is satisfactorily ac- 
counted for, and the reason for it abundantly suf- 
ficient. The manner, too, in which the change was 
effected is seen to be in accordance with the Di- 
vine wisdom and grace, for the salvation of the 
greatest number of both Jews and gentiles. The Jew- 
ish Christians, as long as their temple stood, and 
their nationality lasted, were allowed to practice 
their rites and observe the institutions of Judaism, 
and many thousands of them consequently believed 
in Christ, and were saved. And the gentile Chris- 
tians being exempt from the burdens of the Jew- 
ish ritual, the more readily embraced the hope set 
before them in the Gospel. At length the Jewish 
economy vanished away with its rites and cere- 
monies, its days and months and years, and the 
Lord's day or the first day of the week was alone 
retained as the Christian sabbath — a day of rest from 
secular business — a day of sacred and spiritual exer- 
cises designed to sanctify and save. It is there- 
fore incumbent on all the followers of Christ, who 
acknowledge him as Lord, to observe this day as 
a divine institution. The profanation of it, by the 
transaction of worldly business thereon, is an im- 



KEDEMPTIONS WORKING-DAY. 73 

morality according to the ethics of the Gospel. The 
due observance of it is necessary for the great work 
of human redemption. The sabbath was made for 
man. Made to promote his highest interests and sub- 
limest pleasures. And such is the object of the 
Christian sabbath ; a day whose associations are of 
the most pure and ennobling nature, and which, if 
observed in faith, is adapted to secure the spiritual 
enlightenment and moral improvement of man. As a 
day of rest merely, it would not answer the design of 
its institution. But k is not without its appropriate ser- 
vices. Its sacred hours are not to be spent in idleness. 
It is redemption's working-day, and to this great pur- 
pose it is consecrated. Christianity is a system of re- 
ligious faith and practice; one of the dispensations of 
grace to man, for whose benefit the sabbath was made. 
This system has its religious services, in which the 
knowledge of salvation is imparted, and growth in 
grace is seeured. Forsake not the assembling of 
yourselves together, is am exhortation which relates 
specially to their publicly assembling upon the first 
day of the week. This is one of the chief uses of 
the sabbath. On it the people of God were wont to 
meet for his worship, for the observance of his ordi- 
nances, and for Christian fellowship. Our religious 
improvement and edification demand zealous and re- 
gular attention to the means of grace instituted in the 
church. Whoever neglects them retards his progress 
in the knowledge of the Lord. Yea, he resigns his 
hope of reward in the kingdom of God; for when 
the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God 
through the foolishness of preaching to save them 
7 



74 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

that believe. The due observance of this day is 
pretty correct evidence of the religious state of the 
Christian. Few if any really love the sabbath and 
rest according to the commandment, unless they have 
true piety. The neglect of the sabbath is the charac- 
teristic of those who fear not God, or whose religion 
is sadly declining. 

John, the beloved disciple, says, "I was in the 
spirit on the Lord's day." And this signifies to us 
the way to profit by its holy services -of prayer and 
praise and meditation in God's word. To render the 
sabbath a delight and honorable, we must perform our 
religious duties in the newness of the spirit, and not 
in the oldness of the letter. 

It is this spirituality of worship which gives it the 
power ito sanctify and bless. The sabbath is a bless- 
ing to them who are in the spirit. In the early morn 
they hail its sacred light in sweet communings with 
the Father of all : they walk with him all day in the 
ordinances of religion ; and at night, with hearts over- 
flowing with love, they linger in its departing shadow 
to pour out their thanksgiving to God for the sweet 
and heavenly peace its sacred hours distil. 

" The day that God hath blessed, 
Comes tranquilly on with its welcome rest. 
It speaks of Creation's early bloom ; 
It speaks of the prince who burst the tomb. 
Then summon the spirit's exalted powers, 
And devote to heaven the hallowed hours." 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MILLENNIUM'S SYMBOL-DAY. 

" And lie said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and 
not man for the sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is Lord 
also of the sabbath."— Mark ii. 27, 28. 

The sabbath is the Millennium's symbol-day. Known 
unto God are all his works from the beginning of the 
world ; and in making a revelation of his purposes to 
man, he has made the institutions and laws of one 
age to be the symbols and prophecies of a succeeding 
age. This is a remarkable and important feature of 
Bible truth, too commonly overlooked. The Pass- 
over, while it was actually commemorative of the 
redemption of the first-born of Israel from the sword 
of the destroying angel, in the night that God brought 
forth his people out of Egypt, was also designed as a 
symbol of the redemption of the Church of the first- 
born, whose names are written in heaven, by the 
blood of Christ, our passover, who was sacrificed for 
us. And the law that not a bone of the paschal 
lamb should be broken, was designed as a prediction 
that not a bone of Christ's body should be broken by 
the soldiers when they broke the legs of the two 
malefactors who were crucified along with him. In 
like manner, the sabbath is not only commemorative 
of the rest of Jehovah from his works of creation, 

(75) ' 



76 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

and sanctified as a day of grace to man in the economy 
of redemption, brat it is also a symbol of that rest 
which remaineth unto the people of God. It is hence 
termed a shadow of good things to come. This use 
of the sabbath was supralapsarian. It presented this 
symbolic aspect to Adam while yet in innocency; for 
as he was then under a covenant of works, it inti- 
mated to him, that as God had rested from his> works 
in the seventh day, so, on condition of his continued 
obedience, should he and his obedient posterity rest? 
from their works on the seventh millennary of the 
World. When God created man, he made him to have 
dominion over the earth, and put all things under his 
feet. Dominion, however, was conferred upon him>. 
not absolutely, but conditionally. Mankind were to 
be multiplied — the ear.th populated, subdued and gov- 
erned ; and, on condition of continued obedience, he 
was to be confirmed in holiness and established in the 
perpetual sovereignty of earth ; and his obedient pos- 
terity would in like manner have become associated 
with him in the government. These works would 
have required six thousand years^ of which God's 
works of creation for six days was a symbol; and,, 
then, as on the seventh day, God rested from his works,, 
so should man have rested from his on the seventh 
Millennary of the workL Hence Paul, in Heb. iv. S, 
speaks of that rest or Millennial sabbath as having 
being designed from the foundation of the world. 
The preparatory works were finished in the symbol 
week of Creation, and the rest itself introduced in 
the first holy symbol sabbath. This was the expressive 
manner in which God was pleased to declare or make 



THE MILLENNIUM'S SYMBOL-DAY. 77 

known his purpose and plan. And as Adam was 
created in the image of God in knowledge, he doubtless 
was acquainted with the meaning of these symbolic 
facts. Thus, in the original constitution of the world, 
the sabbath was set forth as a symbol of that state 
of holiness, happiness and glory, to which man 
might have attained by continued obedience to the 
Divine law; but of which he fell short by trans- 
gression, 

u Till one greater man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat." 

Adam, the first representative man, failed to keep 
the law, or to continue in obedience. He sinned and 
forfeited all. But God's purpose has not failed, be- 
cause Adam failed ; nor has the symbol sabbath of 
creation lost its signification. The necessity of divine 
interposition was foreseen, and adequate provision 
was determined upon for the redemption of man. 
Help was laid on one mighty to save. A second 
representative man was provided, and Christ Jesus, 
the Son of God, will, through the remedial system of 
grace, effect what Adam failed to attain through the 
covenant of works. Hence, Jesus said, * My Father 
worketh hitherto, and I work." This was an answer 
to the cavils of the Jews, who said that he had broken 
the sabbath by healing the impotent man who lay by 
the pool of Bethesda waiting for the moving of the 
waters. It seems intended to convey to their minds 
the idea that from the fall of man until then the 
Father had been engaged in a great work— the work 

of human redemption, for which the: sabbath was art 

7# 



78 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

appropriate day, a day set apart from secular business 
and specially devoted thereto — and that his work was 
identically the same as that of the Father's. Indeed, 
it was by him the Father wrought in all his opera- 
tions, and whatever he did was the Father's work, for 
he did nothing of himself; he was simply performing 
the work which the Father sent him to do. The 
entire plan was laid down by the Father, and he did 
nothing but what he saw in the plan. Hence he says, 
John iv. 34, "My meat is to do the will of him that 
sent me, and to finish his work." It was not only 
admissible, therefore, but absolutely right r and in 
accordance with the design of the day, that he should 
be employed in doing those works of benevolence and 
mercy,, which were not merely intended to alleviate 
human suffering, but to furnish unquestionable evi- 
dence of his mission, and lay the foundation of that 
faith in him which saves to the uttermost. In this 
day, and by its divine services, God is still working 
with men and in men to will and to do of his good 
pleasure, while they, by faith in and obedience to the 
Gospel, are actively working out their own salvation 
with fear and trembling. Not that all men will be 
saved by this Divine working ; for all men do not 
believe the word of God nor obey him. Only be- 
lievers are thus saved ; " For this is the work of God," 
said Jesus, "that ye believe on him whom he hath 
sent." And faith in Jesus is productive of holiness 
and salvation. This work of redemption is still pro- 
gressing, and will occupy the six millenniums sym- 
bolized by the six days work of creation, and the 



THE MILLENNIUM'S SYMBOL-DAY. 79 

seventh millennium will then be the great sabbath 
of the earth. 

The sabbath, as the Millennium's symbol day, ha3 
been associated with the work of redemption from its 
commencement. There is no scripture warrant for 
supposing that Adam was ignorant of the original 
constitution of the world, and the relations, duties, 
and responsibilities belonging to himself as the first 
representative man. He was created in knowledge. 
This cannot mean that he was created in ignorance. 
He knew all that it was important for him to know. 
And when he had transgressed the law, and involved 
himself and his posterity in sin and death, he was 
still fully competent to understand the import of those 
terms in which God was pleased to make known his 
glorious purpose of redemption. The declaration that 
the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's 
head, could not have been the foundation of faith ; 
nor could it have afforded any comfort of hope, unless 
it were understood. And if understood, as we have 
every reason to believe it was, then its bearing upon 
the subject of our discourse was apprehended, and 
hope must have anticipated that the six thousand 
years of redemption would terminate in the restitution 
of all things and an everlasting rest. 

That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day, was not only under- 
stood from the symbolic use of the days of Creation, 
and the first sabbath, but also from the use of the 
term day in the penalty annexed to the command that 
they should not eat of the fruit of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, viz.: "In the day thou 



80 ; THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Here the term 
day did not refer to a natural day of twenty-four 
hours ; for Adam did not die in the natural or solar 
day in which he transgressed : but it refers to a mil- 
lennial day of a thousand years, within which Adam 
did die. This is proved from the reference to it in 
the ninetieth Psalm : ? Thou turnest man to destruc- 
tion, and sayest, Return ye children of men. For a 
thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when 
it is passed, and as a watch in the night." This evi- 
dently refers to the sentence pronounced upon man, 
"Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." 
This is the sentence by which man was turned to 
destruction, and this sentence was to be executed in 
the day in which man transgressed ;. that is, within a 
thousand years-, which with the Lord is counted as a 
day. In the antediluvian age there were probably no 
deaths in infancy and childhood, and the people gener- 
ally lived to be several hundred years old. They 
doubtless understood that the penalty of death, which 
had passed upon all men on account of Adam's sin, 
would be executed within the period of a thousand 
years. Adam himself lived nine hundred and thirty 
years, nearly three-fifths of the antediluvian age, and 
hence could instruct his posterity in relation to the 
original constitution of the world, and the work of 
redemption, in both of which the sabbath and its 
symbolic signification was an important feature. Be- 
sides, during that age, the garden of Eden still existed, 
and the cherub with the flaming sword kept the way 
©f the tree of life ; thus insuring the execution of the 
penalty by debarring man from the only means by 



THE MILLENNIUM^ SYMBOL-BAY. 81 

which his life could be protracted. And the Lord 
himself, who dwelt in the garden, appeared to his 
worshipers* as- occasion required r to accept the- sacri- 
fices of faith, and to administer judgment in right- 
eousness, making known the way of salvation through 
faith and voluntary obedience. In the prophecy of 
Enoch (Jude 14), we have evidence that, during that 
age, there were divine revelations concerning the 
glorious advent of the Lord to the earth, and the 
participation of the saints in the rest or sabbath of 
redemption which he will then introduce. "Behold 
the Lord cometh, with ten thousands of' his saints, to 
execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that 
are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds 
which they have ungodly committed, and of all their 
hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken 
against him." This prophecy indicates that when he 
comes for these purposes, his saints, who shall all 
have been previously redeemed and glorified, shall 
come with him, and being constituted associate judges 
or magistrates, shall enter- with him into that kingdom 
and glory then to be revealed. The translation of 
Enoch^ as the seventh from Adam, was probably de- 
signed to teach that the bodies of all the saints shall 
be changed, that they may be fashioned like unto 
Christ's most glorious body, when he comes to estab- 
lish his kingdom in the seventh millenary of the 
world. 

After the Flood, the kingdom of Melchisedek was 
divinely constituted a type of the coming kingdom 
of heaven, or the millennial reign of the Son of God ; 
and the sabbath, as then observed,, was. doubtless- a 



82 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

symbol of that rest thus shadowed forth. In the 
promise to Abraham, further revelation was made of 
the Divine purpose; and he, and Isaac, and Jacob, 
heirs with him of the same promise, sojourned as 
strangers and pilgrims in the land which they should, 
in the future, receive as an inheritance ; and died in 
faith, not having received the fulfillment of the prom- 
ise ; but believing in its certainty, and looking forward 
to a time when they shall be raised from the dead in 
immortal and glorified bodies, and possess the land 
forever. They looked for a city whose builder and 
maker is God. But without stopping to dwell upon 
these points particularly, I invite your attention to 
the fact that the Jewish people entertained the expec- 
tation of the Millennium long before the Christian 
era. There was among them the tradition of the 
house of Elias, " That the world shall endure six thou- 
sand years : two thousand void of the law, two thou- 
sand under the law, and; two thousand the days of the 
Messiah ; and that the seventh is the sabbath, and is 
the beginning of the world to come." They held that 
the six thousand years would correspond with the six 
days work of creation, and that the seventh thousand 
would correspond with the sabbath — a season of holy 
rest and divine benefaction. Hence some persons 
have termed the millenarian theory a Jewish supersti- 
tion, as if every thing Jewish was to be repudiated. 
They have done this apparently without reflecting 
that to the Jews were committed the sacred oracles, 
and that the Millennium has for its foundation the 
glorious promises made to the Fathers, and so sweetly 
and sublimely celebrated in the songs of the prophet 



THE MILLENNIUM'S SYMBOL-DAY. 83 

poets. To the pious Jew the sabbath was not only a 
day of rest from toil and care, but also a sign or 
symbol of that latter day of glory and blessedness 
embraced in the promise to Abraham, and which he 
saw depicted in such glowing colors in the language 
of the prophets. He contemplated each succeeding 
sabbath as a renewed symbol of the promised rest 
which he apprehended by faith. Every believing 
Jew was a spiritual man — an Israelite indeed — and 
to him the rites and ceremonies of Judaism were no 
more gross than are the outward ordinances of Chris- 
tianity to the believer now. " To the pure all things 
are pure ; but to them that are defiled and unbelieving 
nothing is pure." Noble examples have we of those 
early saints who all died in faith, not having received 
the promise, God having reserved some better thing 
for us, that they, without us, should not be made 
perfect. And from those olden times we hear the 
chiming of the symbol sabbath bells, struck by the 
hammer of faith, reverberating among the hills of 
prophecy, and awakening within us the hope of ever- 
lasting rest. 

The future rest of the people of God, or the Millen- 
nium, is one of the principal topics of Paul's letter to 
the Hebrews, cautioning them against the like unbe- 
lief which excluded their fathers, who were brought 
out of Egypt, from entering into the promised land, 
saying, "Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being 
left us of entering into his rest, any of you should 
seem to come short of it. For unto us was the Gos- 
pel preached as well as unto them ; but the word did 
not profit them ; not beng mixed with faith in them 



84 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

that heard it. For we which believe do enter into 
rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, 
if they shall enter into my rest, although the works 
were finished from the foundation of the world. For 
he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this 
wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his 
works. And in this place again, If they shall enter 
into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some 
must enter therein, and they to whoni it was first 
preached entered not in because of unbelief; let us, 
therefore, labor to enter into that rest, lest any man 
fall after the same example of unbelief." In this pas- 
sage the apostle shows that there is a promised rest ; 
and that it was symbolized by God's resting on the 
seventh day from his works of creation. This rest was 
promised to Israel in the flesh on condition of their 
keeping the covenant; but they entered not in be- 
cause of unbelief. The national covenant was broken, 
and the promise is confirmed with believers only. 
For we who believe do enter in. We enter in by faith, 
which is the substance of things hoped for. Or, as in 
scripture, the present tense is frequently put for the 
future to show the certainty of the thing, we who be- 
lieve shall enter in. It is ours by promise now, and 
shall be ours in reality hereafter. For this rest re- 
maineth unto the people of God. It is yet future. 

But, he continues : ''Again he limiteth a certain day, 
saying in David, To-day, after so long a time ; as it 
is said, To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not 
your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then 
would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 
There remaineth therefore a rest" — a sabbatism — the 



THE MILLENNIUM'S SYMBOL-DAY. 85 

keeping of a sabbath — "unto the people of God." 
Herein he shows that the rest spoken of is yet future. 
It was indeed preached to Israel in the wilderness, 
but they entered not in because of unbelief ; for God 
said that they should not enter into that rest. And 
when he brought their children into the land of 
promise, still they, being disobedient like their fathers, 
were not brought into that rest, seeing that a long 
time afterward, even in David's time, he still speaks 
of that rest as future. Nor did any generation of 
Israel enter in; for they ^11 disobeyed God, and kept 
not his covenant and polluted his sabbaths, and there- 
fore were nationally excluded from that rest. The 
rest then is one not yet possessed. It is future. It yet 
remains unto the people of God. This rest is, then, the 
seventh millenary — the keeping of a sabbath after the 
work of redemption shall be finished in the salva- 
tion of the church of the first-born whose names are 
written in heaven. This rest includes the blessings 
of the -covenant made with Abraham and his seed : 
and shall be given to all who believe in Christ and 
keep his commandments. The seed of faith shall 
enter in : for if ye axe Christ's then are ye Abraham's 
seed and heirs according to the promise. So then 
they that are of faith shall be blessed with faithful 
Abraham. 

u And he that hath entered into his rest, he also hath 
ceased from his own works, as God did from his." 
This cannot mean that he ceases from laboring to 
enter in through the deeds of the law ; for that does 
not accord with the comparison employed to illustrate 
it We cannot compare the works of an unbeliever 
8 



86 THE SABBATH AST!) ITS LORD. 

— sinful works — with, the works of God. The passage 
is to be understood of the believers actually entering 
into that millennial rest ; for he will then have truly- 
ceased from all his work and labor in this preparatory 
state. The work of redemption will then be finished : 
and the whole redeemed and glorified church will 
enter into that rest at once. The argument of the 
apostle is conclusive in regard to the futurity of that 
rest; it is, He that hath entered into his rest hath 
ceased from his works ; but believers have not yet 
ceased from their works, hence they have not yet 
entered into $hat rest. The rest is yet to come. Hence 
the voice which the beloved disciple heard in the Isle 
of Patmos, said ; "Blessed are the dead which die in 
the Lord from henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit, that 
that they may rest from their labors, and their works 
do follow them." And the time of this rest is shown 
by the context to be when the one hundred forty and 
four thousand of Israel, representing the redeemed from 
the earth shall stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion ; 
when, indeed, the harvest of the earth shall be reaped, 
and all the saints of God shall be glorified with Jesus 
Christ. And therefore it is to be at the second 
coming of Christ, at the end of the present dispensa- 
tion, to establish his millennial kingdom : for then 
shall the Lord recompense tribulation to the troublers 
of his church, but rest to them that are troubled. 

The early Christians all believed in this future rest, 
and held substantially the same view respecting the 
sabbath as a symbol of it. Thus Barnabas, in the 
first century, comments upon the words of Moses: 
" And God made in six days the works of his hands, 



THE MILLENNIUM'S" SYMBOL-DAY. 87 

and he finished them on the seventh day, and he rested 
in it and sanctified it. Consider, children, what that 
signifies, * He finished them in six days.' This it sig- 
nifies, that the Lord will finish all things in six thou- 
sand years. For a day with him is a thousand years, 
as he himself testifies, saying, ' Behold this day shall 
be a thousand years.' Therefore, children, in six days, 
that is, in six thousand years, shall all things be con- 
summated. { And he rested the seventh day.' This 
signifies that when his Son shall come, and shall abol- 
ish the season of the wicked one, and shall judge the 
ungodly, and shall change the sun, and the moon, and 
the stars, then he shall rest gloriously in that seventh 
day." Barnabas " was a good man, full of the Holy 
Spirit and of faith." He was a companion of the 
apostles. He first introduced Paul to Peter and the 
other apostles, and labored with him in preaching the 
Gospel. His opinion corresponds with Paul's language 
on this point, and is entitled to great weight. His 
views evidently coincide with and are derived from 
the scriptures. As for instance, Isa. xxx. 26, " More- 
over, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the 
sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold as 
the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord 
bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the 
stroke of their wound." And xxiv. 23. "Then shall 
the moon be confounded and the sun ashamed when 
the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in 
Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." With 
these predictions he associated the second coming of 
the Son of Man which precedes his reign, and taught 
that the seventh millenary shall be the great sabbath 



88 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

of the world in which Christ and his glorified saints 
shall reign over all the earth. 

Justin Martyr, in the second century, declares that 
the Millenarian Theory was believed by all true 
Christians in his day. It was not an opinion of sec- 
ondary importance ; but a leading and cardinal doc- 
trine of the church. He admits that some who pro- 
fessed to be Christians did not acknowledge it ; but 
he says they were such as did not follow godly and 
pure doctrine; "But," says he, "I, and as many as are 
orthodox Christians in all respectSj do acknowledge 
that there shall be a resurrection of the flesh, and a 
residence of a thousand years in Jerusalem, rebuilt, 
and adorned, and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel, 
Isaiah and others unanimously attest." He quotes 
from Isa. Ixv. the promise of a new heaven and a new 
earth as applicable to the Millennium, and also the 
scripture, "'One day with the Lord is a thousand 
years." "Moreover," says he, "a certain man among 
us, whose name was John, being one of the twelve 
apostles of Christ, in that revelation which was shown 
to him, prophesied, that those who believe in Christ 
shall live a thousand years in the new Jerusalem." He 
also says, "We may judge from many places in scrip- 
ture, that those are in the right who say six thousand 
years is the time fixed for the duration of the present 
frame (condition) of the world." The allusion here 
is to the symbolic character of the six days' creation, 
and the sabbath, as a divine method of indicating the 
cycles of redemption and the sabbath of millennium 
blessedness. 

Cyprian, also, bears a similar testimony. He 



THE MILLENNIUM'S SYMBOL-DAY. 89 

fixes the period of six thousand years for the world's 
age, and the dissolution of the present state of 
things, and speaks of the seventh millennium a& 
the consummation of all, and the rest of God's 
people. 

Lactantius, in the fourth century, says, " Because 
all the works of God were finished in six days, it is 
necessary that the world shall remain in this state six 
ages, that is six thousand years." And again : " Be- 
cause, having finished the works, he rested on the 
seventh day and blessed it, it is necessary that the end 
of the six thousandth year all wickedness shall be 
abolished out of the earth, and justice shall reign for 
a thousand years." Again : " When the Son of God 
shall have destroyed injustice, and shall have restored 
the just to life, he shall be conversant among men a 
thousand years, and shall rule them with most just 
government." 

Such were the views entertained by the primitive 
Christians when " the style of Christianity was to 
believe, to do, and to suffer." In all their tribulation 
and persecutions they were comforted and supported 
by the blessed hope of that rest which remaineth to 
the people of God. They understood it to be the 
Divine purpose, as symbolized by the six days of 
creation and the sabbath, to accomplish in six thou- 
sand years, which were foreseen as necessary thereto, 
the redemption of an elect people consisting of all true 
believers, to save and glorify them, and with them to 
rest gloriously in the seventh thousand, when all 
wicked governments being destroyed, the saints 
8* 



90 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

shall take the kingdom and possess it forever and 
ever. 

The sabbath is the Millennium's symbol-day. The 
sabbath in Eden at the close of the six days' work of 
creation was its most perfect type. It was man's first 
day of holy and joyous life ; and was given to him 
as a symbol of that everlasting rest in which, after 
six millenaries of preparation in populating and sub- 
jecting the earth, he, if faithful, and all his obedient 
and sanctified offsprings should be immortalized and 
glorified, and established in perpetual sovereignty over 
the earth. And when man had sinned, and was driven 
from the garden of Eden, the sabbath was continued 
to him as a symbol of the rest to be obtained through 
faith in the seed of the woman, who shall bruise the 
serpent's head, and at the close of six thousand years 
of working forhuman redemption, shall, with his im- 
mortalized and glorified saints, establish his everlast- 
ing kingdom of righteousness and peace upon earth. 
And, through all ages and dispensations, and to the 
believing in every generation, to Abel and Enoch and 
Noah, and Shem and Abraham, and all the seed of 
faith, the sabbath, in its sacred rest from worldly toil, 
and with its Divine services of grateful, loving wor- 
ship, has told of a coming day of blessedness and 
glory. The sabbath, as the prophetic tongue of time, 
has spoken in the language of mercy and ; grace to the 
weary, restless pilgrims of earth, bidding them seek, 
in fellowship with the Lord, an everlasting rest, in 
the future restitution of all things. During the trial 
of the natural seed of Abraham, while it was a sign 
to them of a special covenant which as a nation they 



THE MILLENNIUM'S SYMBOL-DAY. 91 

broke in every period of their trial, and so failed of 
attaining to the glory and blessedness it symbolized, 
it was to the true Israel a symbol of the rest remain- 
ing to the people of God on the terms of a better 
covenant: and the pious Jew looked forward to the 
coming of the Messiah, when Abraham and all be- 
lievers, being raised and immortalized, shall be 
brought into that rest. And when the trial of the 
natural seed was ended, and for sufficient reasons the 
first day of the week superseded the seventh as the 
sabbath, it retained all its symbolical import, and, to 
the humble Christian, speaks of the rest that remaineth 
unto the people of God. 

As the Millennium's symbol-day the sabbath is to 
be highly esteemed. It turns our thoughts from the 
turmoil and sorrow of the present, to the peace and 
joy of the future. It affords us time and opportunity 
to hear and meditate upon the word of God, and make 
preparation for the inheritance of the saints in light. 
McCheyne says : " When a believer lays aside his 
pen or loom, brushes aside his worldly cares, leaving 
them behind him with his week-day clothes, and 
comes up to the house of Grod, it is like the morning 
of the resurrection, the day when we shall come out 
of great tribulation, into the presence of God and the 
Lamb. When he sits under the preached word, and 
hears the voice of the Shepherd leading and feeding 
his soul, it reminds him of the day when the Lamb 
that is in the midst of the throne shall feed him and 
lead him to living fountains of waters. When he 
joins in the psalm of praise, it reminds him of the 
day when his hands shall strike the harp of God 7 ' in 



92 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

the assembly of the saints, where the sabbath has 
no end. 

" Hail, holy day ! The blessing from above 
Brightens thy presence like a smile of love, 
Soothing, like oil upon a troubled sea, 
The roughest waves of human destiny — 
Cheering the good, and to the poor oppressed 
Bearing the promise of their heavenly rest." 

Mrs. Hale. 



CHAPTEE IV, 

THE LOKD OF THE SABBATH. 

" And lie said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, 
and not man for the sabbath. Therefore the Son. of man is- 
Lord also of the Sabbath^'— Mark ii. 27,28. 

The term Son of man, in the New Testament, is 
expressly appropriated to Jesus Christ, and seems 
intended to intimate his conditional affinity to our 
race, assumed for the purpose of redemption. The 
incarnation of the Son of God is a great mystery : a 
fact in theology which commands our faith, although 
it exceeds our comprehension. It is a prime truth in 
revelation, a foundation-stone of the Christian system. 
" When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth 
his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to 
redeem them that were under the law ; that we might 
receive the adoption of sons." This must be regarded 
as an essential truth of revelation, without which the 
Gospel would possess no power to save. To this the 
doctrine of Christ crucified owes all its moral influ- 
ence. It was not, therefore, in vain curiosity that 
Jesus asked his disciples the question, " Whom do 
men say that T, the Son of Man,, am?" But it was to 
make it the occasion of impressive discrimination 
between human opinions and a Divine revelation con- 
cerning his nature and relations. The answer dis- 

(93) 






94 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

closes to us the prevailing humanitarianism of the 
day. u, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; 
some, Elias; and others,, Jeremiah, or one of the 
prophets." Nicodemus had said, u We know that 
thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can 
do the miracles which thou doest, except God be with 
him." But the highest conception which the Jewish 
people generally entertained, respecting him was, that 
he was one of the old prophets who had risen from 
the dead, or as one of the prophets. Their notions 
were all humanitarian,, and were derived from no 
higher source than their own vain reasoning. On the 
contrary, when,, in reply to the question, u Whom say 
ve that I am?'' Peter answered, ''Thou art the Christ 
the Son of the living God," Jesus pronounced it a 
Divine revelation — an inspired oracle — ■ saying, 
" Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and 
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
who is in Heaven." And this agrees with another 
declaration of his, "No man knoweth the Son, but 
the Father." The humanitarian scheme cannot stand 
in the face of these declarations. If Jesus were simply 
a human being, conceived and born as other men, 
there was nothing in regard to his nature requiring 
a special revelation to make him known. If Jesus 
were simply a human being, the most of his sayings 
in relation to himself are sheer nonsense or blasphe- 
mous assumption. Take for instance, John iii. 13, 
a No man hath ascended up into heaven, but he that 
came down from heaven,, even the Son of man who is 
in heaven ;" and John vi. 62, " What and if ye shall 
see the Son of man ascend up where he was before ?" 



THE LOBD OF THE SABBATH. 95 

These passages show that no man, no one of Adam's 
race, ever ascended into heaven that he should come 
down from heaven, and hence the Son of man, who 
came down from heaven, is of heaven — one whose 
nature and origin are heavenly and divine. And 
when he ascended up into heaven, it was to return to 
the place and condition which he had previously oc- 
cupied and enjoyed. 

The semi-humanitarian scheme is "but little, if any 
better than the humanitarian : for although it admits 
the docrtine of the miraculous conception of Jesus, 
yet it maintains that he was only .a human being, and 
denies any previous existence to him who was born 
of the Virgin. It holds that he was merely a human 
being, supernaturally conceived, or miraculously 
created, and first began to exist about eighteen hun- 
dred and fifty -nine years ago. The only differences 
between the humanitarian and the semi-humanitarian 
schemes are these : The former rejects the doctrine 
of the miraculous conception ; the latter admits it. 
The former maintains that God is but one person ; the 
latter maintains that he is three persons. The former 
believes that God himself was in special union with 
the human being Jesus ; the latter believes that only 
one of the three persons of the compound Godhead 
was in special union with the human being Jesus. 
Both systems agree in denying the previous existence 
of the Son of man ; they deny that the Son of man 
came down from heaven ; they deny that when the 
Son of man ascended up into heaven, he returned to 
a place and condition he had previously occupied and 
enjoyed. We are compelled, therefore, in fidelity to 



96 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

the word of God, the revelation which God has given 
us concerning his Son Jesus Christ, to reject both 
these systems as erroneous, as the offspring of human 
speculation and unbelief. Our inquiry is, u What saith 
the Scriptures ?" Our faith must not stand in the wis- 
dom of men, but in the Divine testimony ; and, 

First. The Scriptures teach us that he who is called the 
Son of man, is really the Son of the living God. This was 
the amount of Peter's answer to the question of Jesus, 
and expressly sanctioned by our Lord as a divinely 
revealed truth, known only by inspiration of God. 
When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary the con- 
ception of Jesus, he said, u The Holy Spirit shall come 
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee ; therefore, also, that holy thing which 
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." 
Luke ii. 35. Here the name Son of God is given to 
the Virgin's child, to him who was born in. Bethlehem. 
At the Feast of the Dedication, as Jesus walked in Sol- 
omon's porch, the Jews came to him and said, " How 
long dost thou make us doubt? If thou be the 
Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus answered, " I told you 
and ye believed not : the works that I do in my Fa- 
ther's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe 
not, because ye are :not of my sheep, as I said unto 
you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and 
they follow me ; and I give unto them eternal life, 
and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck 
them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them 
me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck 
them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are 
one." Then the Jews took up stones to stone him as 



THE LORD OF THE SABBATH. 97 

they said ; for blasphemy, because that, being a man, he 
made himself God. Jesus answered, " Is it not written 
in your law, I said, ye are Gods ? If he called them 
Gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scrip- 
tures cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Fa- 
ther hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou 
blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God ? 
If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 
But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the 
work ; that ye may know and believe that the Father 
is in me, and I in him." John x. 22-38. I have 
selected these passages, because they prove beyond all 
cavil, that Jesus is the Son of God; because they 
have reference to the Man Christ Jesus, to him who 
was made of a woman, made under the law, made in 
the likeness of sinful flesh, and was found in fashion 
as a man ; because, without supposing a gross decep- 
tion, they cannot be construed to apply to any Divine 
person other than himself, either in union with him 
or dwelling in him. The hypothesis that there were 
two natures, or rather two persons — a divine person 
and a human person — combined in the Messiah, and 
that he sometimes spake of himself and his relations 
in reference to each of these persons separately, or 
that sometimes he spake as God and sometimes as 
man, is resorted to for the purpose of reconciling the 
incongruities which his language presents to the semi- 
humanitarian scheme. It is, however, without any 
foundation in Scripture ; not being as much as inti- 
mated in the Gospels or the Epistles, but is contrary 
to the tenor of Christ's teaching and to the sincerity 
and candor of his character. The supposition that he 
9 



98 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

thus spake without apprising his auditors of such a 
distinction, represents him as disingenuous, as sport- 
ing with the ignorance, and shocking the religious 
sense of the people ; and robs his defense of himself 
from the charge of blasphemy of all pertinence and 
reason. The term Son of God is understood by some 
semi-humanitarians to apply to the Divine person, and 
by others to the human person of the Messiah. The 
former maintain that the distinction on which it is 
founded exists essentially in the Godhead ; the latter 
ridicule the idea of an eternal Son, and maintain that 
the foundation for it exists only in the manhood. The 
passages I have quoted refer to no such distinction ; 
but simply teach us that Jesus Christ is the Son of GocL 
Other passages could be adduced, but these are suffi- 
cient. 

Second. The Scriptures teach that the Son of man 
existed before he came into the world, and also before 
any thing was created. In John viii. 23, it is recorded 
that Jesus said to the Jews, a Ye are from beneath ; 
I am from above : ye are of this world, I am not of 
this world." Again, v. 42, " If God were your Father 
ye would love me, for I proceeded forth and came 
from God ; neither came I of myself, but he sent me." 
And when they asked him, v. 53, a Art thou greater 
than our father Abraham, who is dead ? and the 
prophets are dead ; whom makest thou thyself?" 
Jesus answered, (vv. 54-58,) " If I honor myself, my 
honor is nothing : it is my Father that honoreth me, 
of whom ye say that he is your God ; yet ye have not 
known him, but I know him; and if I should say, I 
know him not, I should be a liar like unto you : but 



THE LORD OF THE SABBATH. 99 

I know him and keep his saying. Your father Abra- 
ham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was 
glad. Then said the Jews to him, Thou art not yet 
fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ? Jesus 
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before 
Abraham was, I am." Again in his prayer, John 
xvii. 5, Jesus says, And now, Father, glorify thou 
me with thine own self, with the glory that I had with 
thee before the world was." These passages show 
unequivocally that Jesus claimed for himself, as he 
then appeared before his auditors, a heavenly origin; 
that he, as the Son of God, proceeded forth and came 
from God, and hence that he existed before Abraham, 
yea, before the world was made. The term a pro- 
ceeded forth," evidently relates to his nature as the 
Son of God, and is equivalent to the phrase "only 
begotten of the Father :" and the term " came from," 
relates to his mission as the Messiah, and is equivalent 
to the phrase that the Father sent him. No language 
could more clearly set forth his pre-existence. The 
doctrine taught in these passages fully accords with 
what the personal Wisdom, or Son of God, is repre- 
sented as saying in Prov. viii. 22-30, "The Lord pos- 
sessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works 
of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the be- 
ginning, or ever the earth was. When there w r ere no 
depths I was brought forth ; when there were no foun- 
tains abounding with water. Before the mountains were 
settled, before the hills was I brought forth. While 
as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor 
the highest parts of the dust of the world. When he 
prepared the heavens I was there ; when he set a com- 



100 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

pass upon the face of the depths; when he established 
the clouds above ; when he strengthened the fountains 
of the deep ; when he gave to the sea his decree, 
that the waters should not pass his commandment 
when he appointed the foundations of the earth 
then I was by him, as one brought up with him 
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before 
him." 

Third. The Scriptures teach that he is the personal 
representative of God. He is called " The image of 
God," 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; u The image of the invisible God," 
Col. i. 15; "The brightness of his glory and the ex- 
press image of his person," Heb. i. 3 ; because it is in 
him and by him that God manifests himself to his 
creatures. The invisible could not be otherwise mani- 
fested without a representative. God therefore has 
his image, or representative, and that image is his 
Son. u No man hath seen God at any time ; the only- 
begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he 
hath declared him," John i. 18 ; that is, hath, as his re- 
presentative, proclaimed him and otherwise made 
him known. So in the first verse, u In the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was God." I understand the last clause to 
mean that the Word represented God ; as when Paul 
says a that rock was Christ," he means that rock repre- 
sented Christ. The Son of God is a necessity of the 
Divine Nature — necessary to the manifestation of the 
being, perfections and personality of God. As it is 
written, " No man knoweth the Son, but the Father ; 
neither knoweth any man the Father, but the Son, 
and he to whom the Son will reveal him." Hence 



THE LORD OF THE SABBATH. 101 

Christ is the " only -begotten Son of God" — " the first- 
born of every creature" — " the beginning of the crea- 
tion of God." And by him God is made known to 
all intelligences. It was as the representative of God 
that Jesus, in answer to Philip's request, "Lord, show 
us the Father and it sufficeth us/' said, " Have I been so 
long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, 
Philip ? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, 
and how sayest thou, then, Show us the Father ? Be- 
lievest thou not that I am in the Father and the Fa- 
ther in me? The words that I speak unto you, I 
speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in 
me, he doth the works. Believe me that I am in the 
Father and the Father in me : or else believe me for 
the very works' sake." John xiv. 8-11. It is very 
plain that Jesus did not mean that he was the very 
Father himself, but that he represented him ; so that 
to see him was to see the Father. The Invisible is 
thus said to be seen in his representative. The Son 
of man was the representative of the invisible God, 
for " in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily." 

Fourth. The Scriptures teach that by him God made, 
upholds and governs all things. Paul, in Eph. iii. 9, 
says that " God created all things by Jesus Christ ;" 
and in Col. i. 16,17, "For by him were all things 
created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible 
and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions 
or principalities or powers ; all things were created by 
him and for him ; and he is before all things, and by 
him all things consist." And in Heb. i. 2, he says, 
that " by him God made the worlds ;" or constituted 
9* 



102 THE SABBATH AKD ITS LORD. 

the ages or dispensations of Divine Providence and 
grace. When, therefore, Jesus said to the Jews, u My 
Father worketh hitherto and I work," he identified 
himself with; God in all his works. The Jews then 
sought to kill kim for thus seeming to make himself 
equal with God; but Jesus answered, u Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, 
but what he seeth the Father do ; for what things 
soever he doth, those also doth the Son likewise.'' 
John v. 17, 19. And again : " For as the Father hath 
life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have 
life in himself; and hath given him authority to exe- 
cute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man." 
John v. 26, 27. Here Jesus disclaimed any and all 
independent action or operation. He did nothing of 
himself, and could do nothing of himself, but he was 
the medium of all the Father's operations in creating, 
upholding, and judging or governing ih& world. 

Fifth. The Scriptures teach that he came into the 
world by incarnation, obeyed the law, suffered for sin, 
died on the cross, arose from the dead, and ascended 
into heaven, that he might effect and carry on the 
work of human redemption. Jesus said to the Jews, 
John vi. 33, "For the bread of God is He which 
cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto 
the world." And, (v. 38,) " For I came down from 
heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him 
that sent me." The Jews murmured at him because 
he said, "I am the bread which came clown from 
heaven." And they said, " Is not this Jesus, the son 
of Joseph, whose father and mother we know ? how 
is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?" 



THE LOED OF THE SABBATH. 103 

Jesus then justified his saying, that He was the bread 
of life, and added, (v. 51,) "I am the living bread 
which came down from heaven ; if a man eat of this 
bread he shall live forever ; and the bread that I will 
give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of 
the world." But, without quoting the whole passage, 
it is to be observed from what I have quoted, as well 
as the entire argument in connection, that Jesus in- 
tended that they should understand that He, the very 
and identical Son of man, came down from heaven ; 
and not that he had reference to any such hypothesis 
as that he had two natures or persons, one of which 
was heavenly and divine, and the other earthly and 
human. For he asserted that the bread which came 
down from heaven was his flesh which he would give 
for the life of the world. And when many of his dis- 
ciples murmured, saying, ''This is a hard saying; who 
can hear it?" Jesus said to them, (vv. 61. 62,) "Doth 
this offend you ? What and if you shall see the Son of 
man ascend up where he was before?" Implying that 
he the Son of man had existed in heaven, and had really 
come down from heaven, and should ascend into heaven 
again. Hence Paul says, " He that ascended, what is 
it but that he also descended first into the low r er parts 
of the earth." Now it was Jesus the Son of man who 
ascended, it was therefore Jesus the Son of man who 
descended first into the lower parts of the earth, i. e. 
became incarnated and suffered and died. "With this 
agree these declarations of Jesus, John xvi. 28, "I 
came forth from the Father, and am come into the 
world : again I leave the world and go to the Father ;" 
and Matt. xx. 28, " For the Son of man is not come 



104 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give liis 
life a ransom for many." And it is written, John i. 
14, a And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only 
begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth." The 
Word was made flesh, accords with Christ's own re- 
presentation that his flesh is the bread of life which 
came down from heaven, and that we can have eternal 
life only by believing in the incarnate Word. Paul, 
speaking of this great mystery, says, Tim. iii. 16, 
" God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, 
seen of angels, preached unto the gentiles, believed 
on in the world, received up into glory." And Heb. 
ii. 9, a But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower 
than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned 
with glory and honor." Again, Eom. i. 3, 4, "Jesus 
Christ our Lord was made of the seed of David ac- 
cording to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of 
God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, 
by the resurrection from the dead." And again, Phil, 
ii. 6-8, " Who, being in the form of God, thought it 
no robbery to be as God ; but made himself of no re- 
putation, and took upon him the form of a servant, 
and was made in the likeness of men ; and being found 
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became 
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." It 
is impossible to make these passages agree with either 
the humanitarian scheme, or the semi-humanitarian ; 
for they distinctly show that he who came into the 
world by incarnation, obeyed, suffered, died on the 
cross and rose again, was the Son and representative 
of God, who had previously been in the form of 



THE LORD OF THE SABBATH. 105 

God and, in that pre-existent state, thought it no rob- 
bery to appear as God. 

Sixth. The Scriptures teach that he is the same per- 
son through all dispensations and in all forms or con- 
ditions. Paul says, Heb. xiii. 8, that "Jesus Christ 
(is) the same yesterday and to-day, and forever." He 
is the same who was with God in the beginning, and 
by whom all things were made — the same who being 
in the form of God,, the representative of God, 
appeared as God in all the theophanies of the 
Old Testament times — the same who, becoming in- 
carnate, took on him the form of a servant and mani- 
fested God in the flesh — the same who now dwells 
in the unapproachable light of the holiest of all in 
the heavens — the same who will come again the sec- 
ond time in the glory of the Father. John says, 
•' That which was from the beginning, which we have 
heard, which we have seeu with our eyes, which we 
have looked upon, and our hands have handled of 
the word of life, (for the life was manifested, and we 
have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you 
that eternal life which was with the Father, and was 
manifested unto us,) that which we have seen and 
heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have 
fellowship with us ; and truly our fellowship is with 
the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." 1 John i. 
1-3. From this passage we learn that he who was 
heard, and seen and handled by the apostles, was the 
same person who was in the beginning with God. It 
was the man Christ Jesus whom they heard, and 
looked upon and handled, and the same was with the 
Father in the beginning. It was the Word that was 



106 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

in the beginning with God. It was the Word made 
flesh, whom they heard, saw and handled. The Jeho- 
vah of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New. 
Before the incarnation he appeared in the form of 
God, afterward in the form of a servant. He who ap- 
peared to Isaiah on a throne high, and lifted up, and 
whose train filled the temple, is the same who took 
a towel and girded himself and washed his disciples 7 
feet. And in Heb. i. 6-12, Paul says: "When again 
lie bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he 
saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. 
And of the angels he saith, Who maketli his angels 
spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto 
the Son lie saith, Thy throne, God, is forever and 
ever ; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy 
kingdom : thou hast loved righteousness and hated 
iniquity : therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed 
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And, 
Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation 
of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thy 
hands ; they shall perish, but thou remainest ; and 
they shall all wax old, as doth a garment ; and as a 
vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be 
changed : but thou art the same and thy years shall 
not fail." The Psalms xcvii., xlv. and cii., from which 
the apostle quotes, all relate to the second advent of 
Christ, when again the Father shall bring his only be- 
gotten into the world, and give to him the throne of 
his father David, and establish his kingdom forever, 
and when the saints are to be joint or fellow-heirs 
with him ; though he will be anointed with the oil of 
gladness above them. It was by him the Father 



THE LORD OF THE SABBATH. 107 

created all things, and while, for the redemption of 
man, it has been found necessary to change the phy- 
sical heavens and earth by a flood, and will be 
found necessary to change them again by fire, the Son 
of God ; the one Mediator, remains the same through 
all changes, and his years shall not fail ; neither shall 
he faint nor be discouraged till he shall have set judg- 
ment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law. 
The heavens and earth that are now, like the heavens 
and earth which were before the flood, must be 
changed and pass away, and give place to the new 
heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteous- 
ness ; but he remains the same. The same Jesus who 
ascended from Olivet shall come again, and he who 
was crowned with the acanthus and mocked by the 
soldiers, will then wear the diadem of universal sov- 
ereignty, and all things shall be subdued to his sway. 
He is the same yesterday, and to-day and forever. 

" As much, when in the manger laid 
Almighty ruler of the sky, 
As when the six days' work he made, 
Filled all the morning stars with joy." 

Seventh. The scriptures teach that he is Lord of all. 
At his birth the angels said to the shepherds, " Unto 
you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour 
which is Christ the Lord." Luke ii. 11. David called 
him Lord, saying " The Lord said unto my Lord, sit 
at my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool." 
" Therefore," says Peter, "Let all the bouse of Israel 
know that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye 
crucified, both Lord and Christ." Acts ii. 34-36. " Jesus 
Christ is Lord of all." Acts x. 36. " Wherefore God hath 



1 -8 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

highly exalted him, and given him a name which is 
above every name ; that at the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those in 
earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue 
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory 
of God the Father." Phil. ii. 9-11. "The second man 
is the Lord from heaven." 1 Cor. xv. 47. From these 
passages and their connection, as well as other scrip- 
tures, we learn that he who was born of the Virgin, 
who was made in the likeness of men, who was cru- 
cified, who rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, 
sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 
and shall come again at the last day, is Lord of all. 
And there is no other Lord but Jesus Christ, as there 
is no other God but the Father : "For though there 
be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in 
earth (as there be Gods many and Lords many ;) But 
to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are 
all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." 1 Cor. 
viii. 5, 6. 

The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. He 
is the Christ the Son of the living God ; who dwelt 
in the bosom of the Father, before the world was, and 
by whom God constituted the ages or dispensations. 
He was then the Lord of the sabbath at its original 
institution ; for as God created all things by Jesus 
Christ, it was he of whom it is predicated, " For in six 
days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the 
seventh day he rested and was refreshed," Exod. xxxi. 
17, language which could not apply to the self-exist- 
ent and unchangeable God, who fainteth not neither is 



THE LORD OF THE SABBATH, 109 

weary. But Jesus Christ, as the representative of 
God, and by whom he made all things, and in whom 
God may be said to have rested on the seventh day, 
rested then from the work of creation, and sanctified 
the sabbath as creation's holyday, and gave it to man 
in his primitive state of innocence as a day of rest 
from labor — a day of religious service — a day of 
spiritual improvement — a day of glorious anticipation 
of perfect blessedness. The Lord Jesus made man, 
and he made the sabbath for man. The day and its 
use were designated by him, and he has the absolute 
control of it. He is Lord of the sabbath. 

After the fall of man, when it became necessary that 
the Son of God should, in some period of the work of 
redemption, assume a conditional affinity to our race, 
indicated by the declaration that the seed of the wo- 
man should bruise the serpent's head, he was still, as 
before, the Lord of the sabbath, and in perpetuating 
the institution, as redemption's working-day, had the 
right to determine the time and manner of its ob- 
servance under all the dispensations of grace, as well 
as the authority to enjoin it upon all the children of 
Adam. 

The Son of man was therefore Lord of the sabbath 
before the law, and it was, doubtless, by his command- 
ment appropriated to a religious use. It is said that 
at the end of days Cain and Abel brought their 
offerings to the Lord. No other time could be appro- 
priately termed the end of days but the sabbath, which 
being the seventh was the end of the week. Sacri- 
fices were no doubt required to be offered on that 
day in the worship of God, and Abel brought of the 
10 



110 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof, thus show- 
ing his faith in the great sin-offering of which this 
sacrifice was a type. Cain's offering showed his want 
of faith. Sacrifices continued to be offered by the 
faithful through the antediluvian age, and the first 
thing done by Noah after the flood was to offer sacri- 
fice to God. These sacrifices were then ; as well as sub- 
sequently, without doubt, associated with times and 
seasons. And Melchisedek, the priest of the most 
High God, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their 
posterity, must have known the Divine appointment 
of the seventh day, and observed it accordingly. We 
have indeed no specific account of its observance; 
but we teust not thence infer that it was not observed ; 
for thie Son of ?man who said, " Before Abraham was 
I am," and "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he 
saw it and was glad," was then the Lord of the Sab- 
bath which was a type of that Day of the Lord to 
which Abraham also by faith looked forward. Christ's 
day has been from the beginning set forth by its ap- 
propriate symbol, weekly recurring to cheer the heirs 
of promise. And in the observance of the sabbath 
they have expressed their faith, walked with God, 
and become heirs of eternal life. 

The Son of man was Lord of the Sabbath under the 
Law. It was he who was with the congregation in 
the wilderness. He made the Sabbath the sign of 
the national covenant between them and himself, and 
commanded it to be kept as a test of their obedience 
— a ground of their justification and a means of their 
sanctification. He it was who from Sinai spake the 
word of the law, and said "Kemember the sabbath 



THE LOKD OF THE SABBATH. Ill 

day to keep it holy." He gave to Moses all the 
special enactments concerning its observance as the 
sign of their covenant. He renewed his covenant 
with them in ail their generations, sending his 
prophets to them, rising up early and sending them, 
but they would not hear. And at last he came him- 
self in the flesh, made of a woman, made under the 
law, and obeyed the law ; but they despised him and 
rejected him. And the sabbath, as a sign of their 
national covenant, was abrogated when he lay in the 
sepulchre, the crucified one. In breaking that cove- 
nant, in all their generations, they made it manifest 
that no nation in natural flesh could be trained for 
the kingdom of Grod, or prepared for the enjoyment 
of the glory and blessedness of the millennial sab- 
bath. Hence the natural seed were as a nation 
rejected — their covenant abolished, and its sign, so 
far as respected that specific day, in its aspect to the 
nation, abrogated. The Jewish people are now with- 
out a sabbath. The Lord of the sabbath having 
abrogated the sign, and their house is left unto them 
desolate. 

The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath 
under the Gospel. In the end of the Jewish sabbath, 
as it began to dawn on the first day of the week, he 
rose from the dead, introducing a new order of things, 
and consecrating that day as the time of the observ- 
ance of religious worship daring the new dispensa- 
tion of grace to man. It was indeed the end of the 
Jewish sabbath, terminating with it the hope of the 
natural seed by the abrogation of the sign of the 
national covenant. It was the beginning of the sab- 



112 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD, 

bath of a new dispensation in which we are begotten 
again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of our 
Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. The use of the 
sabbath as a sign of a national covenant and test 
of obedience, ended when the trial of the natural 
seed ended. The Lord of the sabbath has therefore 
dispensed with the observance of the seventh day 
because of its special appropriation under the law, 
as the sign of the national covenant, now abrogated, 
and its legal use as a test of obedience. There is now 
no national covenant under the Gospel. The Gospel 
is not a national system for the trial of any nation 
in natural flesh. All nations were tried in Israel 
as the representative nation, and all have been re- 
jected in Israel. And the natural Jew is, wherever 
found in all the world, a living testimony that by the 
deeds of the law no flesh living can be justified. 
The Gospel is, on the other hand, a system of uni- 
versal grace to be preached among all nations for 
the obedience of faith, and the sanctification of all 
believers, who, with the saints of former ages, shall 
constitute the seed of faith— -a holy nation — a royal 
priesthood — a peculiar people, and be heirs of the 
promised inheritance. 

In designating the first day of the week as the 
sabbath under the Gospel, the Lord of the sabbath 
has not made it the sign of the covenant with the seed 
of faith, nor made it the special test of obedience : for 
he has not required the observance of days with their 
special religious institutions as the condition of justi- 
fication. The seed of faith have in all ages been jus- 
tified by faith and not by the deeds of the law. Hence 



THE LOED OF THE SABBATH. 113 

the observance of the sabbath is nowhere enjoined as 
a condition of justification before the law, nor under 
the Gospel ; and only required as such nationally un- 
der the law, for the purpose of showing that no flesh 
living could be justified by the law. And none of 
Israel were justified during their national trial ; but 
those who believed, and who served in the newness 
of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. But 
the obligations to observe the sabbath under the Gos- 
pel are not weakened. Faith does not make void the 
law of God : it establishes the law. The believer is 
furnished with a motive power and a spiritual energy 
by which he is enabled to keep the law, and so walk 
worthy of the vocation wherewith he is called. The 
first day of the week is rendered sacred to him by the 
resurrection of Christ, and has all the sanction of the 
authority of Christ for its observance as the sabbath. 
The Lord of the sabbath has placed its due observance 
among the moral obligations of all to whom the Gospel 
is preached. The Gospel knows no other sabbath but 
it, and no other Lord of the sabbath but the Son of 
man. 

The Son of man is Lord of the Millennial sabbath. 
Paul says, " For unto the angels hath he not put in 
subjection the world to come of which we speak ; but 
one in a certain place testified, saying, " What is man 
that thou art mindful of him ; and the Son of man 
that thou visitest him. Thou madest him a little 
lower than the angels : thou crownedst him with glory 
and honor, and didst set him over the work of thy 
hands : Thou hast put all things in subjection under 
his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under 
10* 



114 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOED. 

him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But 
now we see not all things put under him. But we 
see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels 
for the sufferings of death, crowned with glory and 
honor; that he, by the grace of God, should taste 
death for every man. Heb. ii. 5-9. The honor and 
dignity with which the first representative man was 
created and the dominion given to him, is here con- 
sidered as having been transferred to the second re- 
presentative man, under whom, however, we see not 
yet all things subjected. But in the world to come, 
that is in the Millennium, the great Day of the Lord, 
all things shall be put under him. Then shall he, 
who was made a little lower than the angels for the 
suffering of death, be exalted in glory, and reign 
over all the earth. Then shall the second Adam take 
the dominion forfeited by the first Adam. Then shall 
the Church of God, the second Eve, be exalted with 
Christ, and made partaker of his glory. To the Di- 
vine Adam and his redeemed and glorified consort 
will all things be put in subjection ; and every knee 
shall bow to him, and every tongue confess that he is 
Lord to the glory of God the Father. 

Isaiah,. in the second chapter of his prophecy, speak- 
ing of that period when the Lord's house shall be 
established, in the top of the mountains, and exalted 
above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it; 
when he shall judge among the nations, and the sub- 
jects of his government shall beat their swords into 
plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, (says 
v. 11,) that "the Lord alone shall be exalted in that 
day." And Zechariah says, "Then the Lord shall 



THE LORD OF THE SABBATH. 115 

be king over all the earth ; there shall be one Lord 
and his name one " Zech. xiv. 9. Then the king- 
doms of this world shall become the kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and he shall reign in 
Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients 
gloriously. 

" Come, then, and added to thy many crowns, 
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, 
Thou who alone art worthy ! It was thine 
By ancient covenant, ere Nature's birth ; 
And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, 
And overpaid its value with thy blood. 
Thy saints proclaim thee king ; and in their hearts 
Thy title is engraven with a pen 
Dipped in the fountain of eternal love. 
******* 
Come, then, and added to thy many crowns, 
Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest, 
Due to thy last and most effectual work, 
Thy word fulfilled, the conquest of a world." 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

" And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and 
not man for the sabbath. Therefore the Son of man is Lord 
also of the sabbath." — Mark ii. 27, 28. 

Lsr regard to the observance of the sabbath we have 
to guard against two fatal errors : the one, that of sub- 
jecting man to the sabbath, so as to make him the 
driveling slave of an arbitrary institution, and thus 
sacrificing human welfare to its sanctification : the 
other, that of subjecting the sabbath to man, so as to 
allow him to appropriate it to whatever use he pleases 
without regard to its sanctification. Man was not 
made for the sabbath : his comfort and happiness are 
not of secondary importance to the sanctification of 
the day. The sabbath is not an end to be placed above 
the necessities of humanity ; but a means designed for 
the spiritual benefit of mankind. Such an observance 
of the sabbath as shrouds its atmosphere with gloom, 
and renders its services irksome and oppressive; 
which clothes the soul with a starched and unbending 
austerity ; which encases the spirit in an icy formality ; 
which oppresses the conscience with numberless rigid 
exactions ; which restrains every gladsome emotion 
of the mind by a wearisome scrupulousness ; which 
despoils the heart of every natural joy, and renders 
(116) 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 117 

religion itself an intolerable burden, is a burlesque 
upon the institution, and a mere bugbear to children. 
The soul in such a thraldom finds nothing joyous or 
elevating in private devotion, family worship, or 
church ordinances. The whole affair becomes a tire- 
some drudgery,, in which the unwilling Pharisee forces 
himself to dole out with scrupulous exactness the sanc- 
timonious services whereby he expects to purchase a 
seat in the kingdom' of heaven. It were better that 
the sabbath should be dispensed with altogether, than 
that such a slavish burden should be imposed upon 
the people of God. A more unsightly appendage to 
the Gospel of Christ could scarcely be conceived; 
and yet there are some who seem to have no higher 
conception of the sabbath than this, and who make 
it a grievous burden, by the demureness of con- 
straint imposed in a strictly legal observance of the 
day. 

On the other hand, that the sabbath was made for 
man, must not be construed so as to sanction a dese- 
cration of the day, and allow every one to do what- 
ever he pleases in appropriating its sacred hours to 
indolence^ business or pleasure. The sabbath is not 
to be subject to man's whim or caprice. It is not left 
to his option whether he shall keep it or not : the 
command is, " Eemember the sabbath day to keep it 
holy." He is forbidden to work or play— to seek his 
carnal pleasure or his worldly gain. It is not a matter 
of indifference whether it be kept holy, or spent in 
litter disregard to its sanctification. The sabbath is 
an institution — a divine institution — and was made for 
man's use according to its nature and design, and not 



118 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

for his abuse according to his own will or inclination. 
The sabbath was made for man's spiritual improve- 
ment, and this required that he should cease from 
business and labor. It was made for man's spiritual 
improvement, hence it must not be spent in listless 
indolence or in pursuit of carnal pleasures. To lounge 
about home, or rove through the streets and fields, or 
make railroad or steamboat excursions, or take a 
drive into the country, for amusement and recreation, 
is an abuse of the sabbath. By these and similar 
means of pleasure-seeking, some diversion of mind 
from the ordinary business and cares of life may be 
obtained; but no true refreshment to the soul is 
found, and the end and design of the institution is 
lost. 

The sabbath was made for man — for his spiritual 
benefit. In his original state of innocency it was de- 
signed to furnish him with leisure from "worldly and 
secular concerns, for intellectual and moral improve- 
ment ; and had he not sinned it would, doubtless, 
have been employed in purely spiritual exercises to 
that end, as there would then have been no occasion 
for the diversion of any part of its sacred time to 
other purposes. What the first Eden sabbath was to 
man, it would have continued to be, until all should 
have been perfected in holiness, established in virtue, 
and exalted to the enjoyment of an endless rest — a 
sabbath of unceasing pleasure in the presence of God. 
And a Millennium of glory would have, crowned the 
obedience of man with an everlasting reward. 

The fall of man by sin, rendered necessary a change 
in his condition so as to ensure the execution of the 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 119 

penalty of transgression ; and man was expelled from 
the Garden of Eden, and debarred from the tree of life, 
that having no access to it as the appointed means of 
health, he should, through disease and the decline of his 
natural powers, be brought down to death within a 
thousand years, which with the Lord is as one day, and 
was indicated in the words, a In the day thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die." The deterioration of 
the physical condition of man was then, however, no 
greater than was necessary to effect the execution of 
the penalty, and his circumstances were such that the 
least possible interference with the regular observance 
of the sabbath could occur. It was possible for man, 
in the antediluvian age, to have observed the sabbath 
in almost its Eden perfection. Still, occasions doubt- 
less arose when, for works of mercy and necessity, 
the rest of the sabbath might have been innocently 
broken. 

But, further, when it had been demonstrated, by 
the actual results of the ante-diluvian age, that the 
physical condition of the world was too good for 
man's moral benefit, another change was required to 
adapt it to the purposes of redemption. Man needed 
a severer discipline, and by the deluge such a change 
was effected as was demanded. The life of man was 
shortened ; he was made subject to vanity, and his 
circumstances became such as frequently to render it 
necessary to violate the rest of the sabbath, or sacri- 
fice his comfort and well-being. The example and 
teachings of Christ, the Lord of the sabbath, have a 
special bearing upon this point. 

On one occasion, as Jesus passed through the fields 



120 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

on the sabbath day, his disciples, being hungry, began 
to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat the grain, which 
they shelled by rubbing them in their hands. Against 
this the Pharisees demurred as a violation of the sab- 
bath. Bat Jesus justified his disciples by reference to 
the case of David and his men, who, when hungry, 
went into the house of God and ate of the shew-bread 
which the priest only might do lawfully. Their ne- 
cessity, at the time, justified the common use of the 
sanctified bread; and so human necessity justifies the 
common use of a holy day. A work of necessity may 
be performed on the sabbath. Man may have need 
of food or medicine, or medical attendance and nurs- 
ing — indeed, he may be subject to various necessities, 
coming on him in the order of nature and providence, 
which may be supplied on the sabbath day as far as 
he may have means and opportunity of doing so, 
although in so doing he may be obliged to violate 
the sanctity thereof. 

Again, Jesus said to them, "Have ye not read in 
the law, how that on the sabbath days, the priests in 
the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? 
But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater 
than the temple." To profane the sabbath was to work 
on the sabbath. Now in man's primitive condition 
the services of religion consisted in only devout med- 
itation and grateful praise, and sweet and holy com- 
muning with God. There were no sacrificial offerings 
needed, and no ritual observances of a laborious char- 
acter; but since the fall of man, the services of reli- 
gion have been adapted to the great purpose of 
redemption, and in all ages of the world the ministers 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 121 

of religion have had sacrifices to offer, or other ser- 
vices to perform requiring more or less labor, hence 
they have been obliged, in the discharge of their func- 
tions, to violate the rest of the sabbath. And such 
violation is pronounced blameless by the Lord of the 
sabbath, who, in the economy of his mercy, has con- 
stituted the sabbath redemption's working-day. The 
religious character of the services performed by the 
priests in the temple justified their profanation of the 
day. Their work was essential to the end for which 
the day was made and the temple was built. But 
Jesus, the Son of God himself, the Lord of the sab- 
bath, being greater than the temple, was there, and by 
his example and teaching justified all works of bene- 
volence and mercy in the service of humanity. This 
doctrine of Christ especially justified all labor or work 
necessarily associated with the services of religion. 
Eeligious works may be performed on the sabbath 
day. These works are designed to promote man's spir- 
itual improvement, and hence accord with the design 
of the institution. Under the economy of redemption 
they are necessary to a profitable keeping of the sab- 
bath. In this category, we may also place the work of 
sabbath- school teaching, which, properly conducted, is 
a religious work, calculated greatly to promote the 
spiritual improvement of the young, and implant in 
their minds the seed of faith. 

Again, Jesus said unto them, "If ye had known 
what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacri- 
fice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For 
the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath day." Paul 
says that man was u made subject to vanity," to a severe 
11 



122 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

providential discipline, which has aggravated his help- 
lessness and misery and shortened his days, "not 
willingly," not arbitrarily or unnecessarily, "but by 
reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope ;" 
it being a means adopted in divine wisdom for the re- 
demption of man. In like manner, sacrifices and offer- 
ings were ordained, of God, not because he had any 
pleasure in them, but as a provision of mercy for hu- 
man salvation. And so the sabbath was instituted, 
not for the sake of the day itself, but for man's bene- 
fit, to secure him time for the advancement of his 
spiritual interests. And as man's salvation is the end 
and design of all these institutions, they are to be 
strictly observed in accordance with that end, as far 
as practicable ; but when their observance would re- 
quire a sacrifice of human welfare, or interfere with 
the preservation of life and property, it may be dis- 
pensed with. The necessities of mankind are para- 
mount to all ceremonial institutions, sacrificial rites 
and holy days. The Priest and Levite who passed by 
the half-murdered man on the road from Jerusalem to 
Jericho, without rendering him assistance lest they 
should be ceremonially defiled, were recreant to the 
claims of humanity and violated the higher law, 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." A 
Jew, in London, many years ago, having fallen into 
a sewer on the seventh day, refused to be lifted out 
because it was his sabbath. This being reported to 
the king, his majesty ordered that, since the Jew 
would not be lifted out on the seventh day, lest he 
should break his sabbath, he should not be lifted out 
on the first day, but should be compelled to observe 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 123 

the Christian sabbath in like manner : or that none 
should break the Christian sabbath by lifting him 
out. Before Monday morning, however, the Jew died 
from hunger and exposure in so foul a place. In 
this case, while we pity the poor Jew on account of 
his superstition, we cannot but censure the king on 
account of his inhumanity. Both were wrong ; but 
the king's wrong was the w r orst. God says, " I will 
have mercy and not sacrifice." And Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God, took our condition, and learned by actual 
subjection to our infirmities and trials, the necessities 
and sorrows of our fallen state, that he might know 
how to sympathize with us in our weakness and wo : 
and, as the Lord of the sabbath, he says, in this con- 
nection, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice." He 
has therefore adapted the sabbath to the condition of 
man, that its observance should not be a grievous 
bondage, a slavish and oppressive tyranny ; but that 
it should be a delightful antepast of an eternal rest of 
love and joy. 

In accordance with this saying, a I will have mercy 
and not sacrifice," Jesus performed many of his won- 
drous cures on the sabbath day. A man with a 
withered hand had gone to the synagogue to worship 
on the sabbath. Jesus met him there. The Jews 
watched to see whether he would heal him. Perhaps 
they thought that he would do so secretly. But Jesus 
said to the man, "Stand forth." Then, calling their 
attention to his case, he asked, " Whether is it lawful 
to do good on the sabbath day or to do evil ? to save 
life or to kill ?" But they were silent. And he said 
to them, "What man shall there be among you that 



124 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOKD. 

shall have a sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sab- 
bath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out ? 
How much better then is a man than a sheep? 
Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath day." 
And he said to the man, " Stretch forth thy hand." 
And he did so, and it was immediately healed. In 
this and other cases we find that whatever work was 
requisite to effect the cure, or properly manifest it to 
the glory of God, and whatever was suitable for the 
relief and comfort of the afflicted person, was done. 
Hence he commanded the impotent man who lay at 
the pool of Bethesda to rise, take up his bed and go 
to his house : and, anointing the eyes of the blind 
man with spittle and clay, he sent him to the pool of 
Siloam to wash. 

And Jesus, when he healed the woman who had 
an infirmity eighteen years, rebuked the opposition of 
the ruler of the synagogue, saying, " Thou hypocrite, 
doth not each one of you, on the sabbath, loose his ox 
or his ass from the stall and lead him away to water- 
ing ? And ought not this woman, being a daughter 
of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eigh- 
teen years be loosed from this bond on the sabbath 
day ?" 

Thus are we taught that works of necessity and 
mercy are lawful on the sabbath day. Hence, when 
life or property is in danger, the necessary steps may 
be taken to save them. Means may be employed for 
the removal of disease and the restoration of health. 
Needful food may be prepared, provided the necessity 
is not the result of intentional neglect or design. The 
sick may be visited, and friendly visits for religious 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 125 

discourse and edification may be paid; but they 
should be so timed as not to interfere with or prevent 
attention to other important duties. 

Let no one take advantage of this saying, " I will 
have mercy and not sacrifice," to justify willful and 
needless profanations of the sabbath. The end or de- 
sign of the sabbath must be kept in view, and it 
should be religiously observed in accordance there- 
with, except when the demand of necessity or mercy 
require a departure therefrom. It will be well to re- 
member that the eye of the Lord is upon us at all 
times, and that he knows whether there is a real ne- 
cessity or not for the work that is done on the 
sabbath. Men may deceive themselves, and offer 
plausible excuses to others for their needless profana- 
tion of the sabbath : but they cannot deceive God, 
and only involve themselves in guilt and ruin. A 
chemist and druggist once remarked to an American 
author, u There was a time when I used to court busi- 
ness on the Lord's day ; and sheltering myself under 
the alleged necessity of being on hand to supply medi- 
cines in case of illness, I employed myself in pre- 
paring tinctures, soda powders, etc., for the sake of 
saving time on other days. At that time I took more 
money on the sabbath than on any other day, not a 
penny in a shilling of which was for matters of real 
necessity. When I began to see it to be my duty 
to act differently, and refused to sell perfumery, cigars,, 
etc., on the sabbath, I offended a few, and expected to< 
find my business would be seriously injured. But it 
turned out otherwise. I now enjoy my sabbaths, and 
11* 



V 

126 .1 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

can say with humble thankfulness that my prosperity 
is greater than ever." 

A distinguished physician, finding bis calls to be so 
many on the sabbath as to make it impossible for him 
to attend to public worship, made it known that he 
would not make any charge for Sunday visits, in the 
hope that out of delicacy but few would send for him. 
But he found himself overrun on that day ; for every- 
body could afford to be sick and need a physician on 
Sunday. He then altered his plan, and gave notice 
that he would charge double for Sunday visits. 
After that he was seldom sent for on the sabbath, 
and then only in extreme cases ; so that he could after- 
ward enjoy his sabbaths by a regular attendance on 
•religious service. 

There are doubtless cases of disease in which the 
services of a physician are required on the sabbath, 
and they should be attended to without making double 
charge; but ordinarily these might be so arranged as not 
materially to interfere with the due observance of the 
day. And in like manner apothecaries might so ar- 
range their hours for compounding medicines for the 
sick, that they could avail themselves of the privilege 
of attending the public worship of God. There is 
certainly no necessity that they should keep open for 
the sale of cigars, mineral water, etc. The sin of sab- 
bath-breaking is sadly increasing. Look at our cities. 
See the thousands of taverns and grog-shops, either 
boldly thrown open for the sale of intoxicating drinks, 
or with fronts closed and side-doors open, dealing out 
stealthily the drunkard's poison. Cigar and tobacco 
stores, confectionaries and beer-shops, are many of 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 127 

them engaged in vending their different commodities 
on the sabbath. Bakers and barbers generally carry 
on their business as usual. Stage, steamboat and rail- 
road companies endeavor to profit by getting up ex- 
cursions or running their lines on the Lord's day. 
And whatever excuses may be offered for these things, 
it is evident that the great aim is to make money. If 
it were found that these violations of the sabbath were 
attended with pecuniary loss, horses would have leave 
to rest in their stalls, steamboats would lie at the 
wharf, and the steam-engine would sleep in the depot. 
If men could make money by going to church, it 
would no longer be convenient to remain at home. 
Mankind generally seem to think more of money than 
they do of virtue or of God himself. They look at 
the things which are seen and not at the unseen. 
Temporal interests and sensual pleasures engage their 
thoughts and eternal things are banished from their 
minds. Present advanges blind their eyes to future 
consequences, and eternal salvation is risked, is, in- 
deed, bartered away for the increased profits supposed 
to accrue from pursuing their business on the sabbath. 
But it may be questioned whether, in the long-run, it 
is not a losing business, even in this world, to work on 
the sabbath. Seven young men, in a town in Massa- 
chusetts, started in the same business nearly at the 
same time. Six of them had some property or assist- 
ance from their friends, and followed their business on 
the sabbath, as well as on the other six days. The 
other had less property than either of the six. He 
had less assistance from friends, and worked only six 
days, keeping the sabbath holy. In a few years he was 



128 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

the only one of the seven who had any property and 
had not failed in business. 

"I have particularly observed," says a respectable 
merchant of New* York, " that those who kept their 
counting-rooms open on the sabbath during my resi- 
dence there of twenty-five years, have failed without 
exception." Another gentleman says, " I can recollect 
more than fifty years ; but I cannot recollect a case 
of a man in the town where I reside, who was accus- 
tomed to work on the sabbath, who did not fail or 
lose his property before he died." 

Sir Matthew Hale was very strict in observing the 
sabbath, and he tells us that he had found by experi- 
ence that any attention given to his clients or their 
business on the Lord's day, did never further his cause 
any ; but rather tended to injure it. And he there- 
fore peremptorily refused to attend to any business on 
the sabbath, though he had as much business on hand 
as any other man in England, both before and after he 
was made judge. 

Examples of this kind are numerous enough to 
show that God, by his special providence, has sanc- 
tioned the observance of the Lord's day, and placed 
the stamp of condemnation upon the willful desecra- 
tion of it. But in their mad pursuit after wealth and 
pleasure, men are as deaf to the voice of God in pro- 
vidence as they are to his voice in revelation. No- 
thing restrains them from the most flagrant violations 
of the sabbath, but the penalties annexed to its dese- 
cration by the civil law. And they are loudly urging 
their petitions to have those penalties removed so far 
as may be necessary for them to profit by the sabbatb 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 129 

as a common holyday. These spiders of the commu- 
nity are very willing that the flies may all be out, so 
that they may only be allowed to spread their nets to 
catch them. They would have all factories and work- 
shops closed, that the unoccupied operatives may be 
enticed to spend their hard-earned money in dissipa- 
tion and pleasure-seeking. And thousands have no 
more wit than to suppose that these caterers to a car- 
nal appetite, these tempters from the right ways of 
the Lord, are their benefactors and friends, and join 
w r ith them in petitioning legislatures and councils to 
allow them to make game of them in their violation 
of the sabbath. 

We are generally more apt to be lax in our observ- 
ance of the sabbath than overstrict in keeping it. 
Could w r e give the sabbath a tongue, what complaints 
might it not make against its very friends ? Alas ! 
would it not say, u To what indignities am I not sub- 
jected ? Many will sit up on Saturday night, and 
work or keep their shops open till midnight, because 
they can make up their lack of sleep by lying abed so 
much later in the morning, thus wasting my precious 
hours in slumber. And then they don't go to church 
because they can't get ready in time. The afternoon 
is spent in visiting their friends or receiving calls, and 
they won't go to church at night, because they want to 
rise early on Monday morning, and therefore they 
must go to bed in season. The languge of their con- 
duct, if not their words, is, " When will the sabbath 
be gone, that we may buy and sell and get gain ?" We 
might enlarge upon this point, and show the numer 
ous ways in which the sabbath is desecrated by its 



130 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

professed friends. But space will not permit. The 
neglect of the means of grace, the disregard of the 
sanctuary, the contempt of religious ordinances, mani- 
fested in the indolent lounging about home, the 
secular employment, the vain and trifling conversa- 
tion of professors of religion, show that there is a 
sad deficiency of the spirit of Christ, and a dangerous 
conformity to the world. Professors of religion who 
violate the sabbath "unnecessarily in seeking their 
own pleasure and ease, little think of the pernicious 
influence of their example. Men of the world watch 
for the failings of professors of religion, sneer at 
their inconsistencies, denounce their hypocrisy, and 
justify themselves in an open disregard of the sabbath 
and religious institutions by their faults. 

A suitable preparation should be made previous to 
the sabbath, that it may be kept holy. " Six days 
shalt thou labor and do all thy work." All business 
necessary to be attended to before Monday morning 
should be transacted by Saturday evening. The week's 
work should all be done, that none of its cares be 
carried over into the sabbath day. If a person has so 
much to do that he cannot accomplish it all in six 
days, he should either procure some one to assist him, 
or else curtail his business. He has no right to steal 
the hours of the sabbath for secular employment. 
Posting books, making out bills, writing business 
letters, and other ways in which tradesmen and others 
frequently employ a portion of the sabbath, is alto- 
gether wrong and pernicious in its influence upon the 
mind. Any other kind of work might as well be 
done. The command requires that all the work— 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 131 

all the secular business of the week, shall be done in 
six days. On the sabbath thou shalt not do any work, 
neither employ any one to work for you in your secu- 
lar business on that day. 

In the house also every suitable preparation 
should be made in providing food, fuel and cloth- 
ing, that the spiritual exercises of the family, 
their attendance at church, and their profit from 
the means of grace, may be interfered with as 
little as possible. It is a bad sign to see pro- 
fessors of religion going to the barber's and the 
baker's on the sabbath morning. It is a bad sign 
if the tailor, mantua-maker, milliner, hatter or shoe- 
maker to send their work home on the sabbath morn- 
ing. There are many little things which might be 
attended to on the previous day, that are negligently 
suffered by most professors to pass over undone until 
sabbath morning, and then all are in haste to have 
their little chores done in time for church. How much 
better if all preparations were made on Saturday, 
and that there should be nothing to draw off the 
thoughts from the contemplation of heavenly things 
on the Lord's day. 

Every Christian especially should prepare, by pri- 
vate devotion and self-examination, for the profitable 
use of tlie means of grace, and a comfortable com- 
munion with God in the services of his house. And 
every one should be careful to be at the place of wor- 
ship in due time, so as to be present at the beginning 
of the exercises ; and not think himself in time if he 
only gets there soon enough to hear the text an- 
nounced ; as if the object were more to hear the 



132 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

preacher than to worship God. The hearing of faith 
is indeed of great importance ; but they that have 
faith will exercise it toward God in devoutly prepar- 
ing to profit by the word. And after a devout attend- 
ance on the services of God's house, let the intervening 
time be spent in accordance with the design of the 
day, in reading the Scriptures and religious books, 
meditation, prayer and praise, or in sabbath school 
teaching, visiting the sick, and other works of piety 
and mercy. 

! what a blessing would the sabbath prove if it 
were thus employed in cultivating the mind and heart 
and elevating the soul in communion with God. Then 
all dullness and wearisomeness would vanish. The 
sabbath would be called a delight and honorable. A 
holy cheerfulness would sweeten its passing hours — a 
divine elevation would gladden the spirit — a heavenly 
hope would fill the soul with rejoicing. A sabbath 
thus spent would form, as it was intended it should, 
the nearest approximation to the millennial sabbath 
that we may be now permitted to enjoy. It is the 
Millennium's symbol-day and should be its antepast. 
Then should we be made joyful through the blessed 
hope of that time which is emphatically called "the 
day of the Lord," that seventh millenary of the world, 
when all the saints of God shall be exalted with Christ 
in his glory. Isaiah celebrates that day, as from the 
hill of prophecy he viewed in the distance its coming 
glory. " And there shall come a rod out of the stem 
of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest "upon him, the 
Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 13 



n 



counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of 
the fear of the Lord. And shall make him of quick 
understanding in the fear of the Lord ; and he shall 
not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove 
after the hearing of his ears. But with righteousness 
shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equitj^ for 
the meek of the earth ; and he shall smite the earth 
with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of 
his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness 
shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the 
girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with 
the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the 
kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling 
together, and a little child shall lead them. And the 
cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall 
lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the 
ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of 
the asp, and the w r eaned child shall put his hand on 
the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy 
in all my holy mountain ; for the earth shall be full 
of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the 
sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, 
which shall stand for an ensign of the people. To it 
shall the gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious." 
Isa. xi. 1-10. The time here predicted is evidently 
the Millennium, or the good time coming, which has 
been the expectation of God's people for ages past ; 
and the Rod and Branch of Jesse who shall reign in 
that time is Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was 
made of the seed of David the son of Jesse accord- 
ing to the flesh. The Best is his — a consummation of 
his work during the six millenaries from man's fall 
12 



134 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOKD. 

"unto the restitution of all things. The redemption of 
his elect church will then be completed, and as the 
bride, the Lamb's wife, she will enter with him into 
the enjoyment of that rest. Then shall the arm of the 
oppressor be broken, and rest be given to the na- 
tions, who shall beat their swords into plowshares 
and their spears into pruning-hooks and learn war no 
more. Every man shall sit under his own vine and 
fig-tree and none disturb his peace. 

The sabbath was made for man ; and for man will 
the Millennium sabbath dawn. The new heavens and 
earth, which according to his promise we look for, is 
promised to Christ and his saints, for therein shall all 
believers obtain a glorious and everlasting reward 
along with Christ in his kingdom. That promised 
glory and blessedness is not promised only to the peo- 
ple of God who may then be alive and remain on the 
earth, but to all the saints of God from Abel down to 
the coming of the Lord. For they who shall be alive 
and remain shall not hinder those who are asleep; but 
the dead in Christ shall rise and the living in Christ 
be changed at the same time and caught up to meet 
the Lord in the air, and all shall enter with him into 
the rest or sabbatism of glory and joy. But we must 
not suppose that the millennial sabbath will be 
to the saints a period of inert repose. Far from 
it. They will be made kings and priests unto 
God, and shall reign on the earth. They will be 
actively and delightfully employed in carrying on 
the administration of the heavenly kingdom, in 
governing the nations, in subduing and reconciling 
all the disobedient to the government of God. In this 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 135 

work they will find their highest satisfaction and en- 
joyment. A state of voluptuous indolence, such as 
many expect in heaven, would be a curse instead of 
a blessing to intelligent beings. The saints of God 
are to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works, 
and all the traits of Christian character here formed 
must come into active exercise in the future king- 
dom of Christ. The Millennial sabbath will be 
a perfect rest to them from all the work and trial 
of the present probationary life, and in the full enjoy- 
ment of the glory and blessedness promised as their 
reward. 

Under their administration of the kingdom, the 
nations of the earth shall have rest. They shall 
pursue the arts of peace. War shall be known 
no more. Its horrid art shall be forgotten. Slavery 
shall cease. Its chains will be broken, and no more 
shall " man's inhumanity to man make countless mil- 
lions mourn." 

" The groans of nature on this nether world, 
Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end, 
Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung 
Whose fire was kindled at the prophet's lamp. 
The time of rest, the promised sabbath comes ; 
Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh 
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course 
Over a sinful world ; and what remains 
Of this tempestuous state of human things 
Is merely as the workings of a sea 
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest. 
For he whose car the winds are, and the clouds 
The dust that waits upon his sultry march, 
When sin hath moved him, and his wrath is hot, 
Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend 



136 THE SABBATH AND ITS LOKD. 

Propitious in his chariot paved with love ; 
And what his storms have blasted and defaced 
For man's revolt, shall with a smile repair.' ' 

Yes, we look and wait for that rest. We groan 
for that redemption, and hopefully anticipate the 
promised jubilee of earth. The nearer the Millen- 
nial sabbath approaches, the more carefully should 
we observe its hallowed symbol, and prepare for 
its glorious realities. If we have no taste for the 
religious services of the symbol-sabbath, how 
can we expect to enjoy the thing symbolized? 
Let us then assiduously cultivate a love for the 
sabbath and its holy duties, " not forsaking the 
assembling of ourselves together as the manner of 
some is ; but exhorting one another, and so much 
the more as we see the day approaching." Hail, 
then, each sabbath morning with delight. Eise early 
that you may have the more time to spend in its 
appropriate religious exercises. Lift up your soul 
to God in devout contemplation — fervent prayer 
and grateful praise, and in your secret communing 
with heaven, let your soul be baptized with the 
Spirit, that you may be in the Spirit throughout 
the day. Gather your family together, and with them 
join in singing Jehovah's praise, reading his word, 
and offering the tribute of devotion. Take them 
to the house of God for public worship, and teach 
them to esteem the sabbath and its services as their 
greatest pleasure. And when the day of the Lord 
comes, God will bring you to his holy mountain and 
make you joyful in his house of prayer. 



THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 137 

Happy day ! Great sabbath of Eedemption. Eest 
of the redeemed — of all the redeemed — of the re- 
deemed from six thousand years of trial, toil and pain 
— of all who through faith have washed their robes 
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
What glorious beauty shall thy peaceful years adorn! 
What substantial pleasures flow from the presence of 
the sabbath's Lord, and thrill with rapturous joy the 
glorified company! How exalted their condition! 
how heavenly ! how divine I What magnificent de- 
velopments will be made of the love of God to his 
chosen and sanctified ones I What a compensation 
for their work of labor and love which they have 
showed toward his name ! 

O day of the Lord ! the seventh, in relation to the 
past, bringing sweet repose, and heavenly rest to the 
weary workers who shall compose the church of the 
saved ; and yet the first in relation to the future, the 
embryo of a still more glorious and unending day of 
rest, when under the administration of the saints of 
God, with Jesus reigning, the subjection and reconcilia- 
tion of all things shall have been effected, and all in- 
telligences, in their appropriate conditions, shall bow 
the knee to Jesus, and confess him Lord, to the glory 
of God the Father; when the voices of earth shall 
all be tuned to a divine harmony, and join in the 
universal chorus of praise. 

The purpose of God in relation to the nations of 
the earth, through the reign of the saints, will culmi- 
nate at the end of a thousand years : and the Millen- 
nium sabbath will end, to be succeeded by other 
measures of the divine government toward the un- 
12* 



138 THE SABBATH AND ITS LORD. 

righteous dead who shall be raised from death and 
subjected and reconciled. But the condition of the 
saints will not end with the Millennium. They will be 
kings and priests unto God through all phases of the 
everlasting kingdom. Their rest of glory and bless- 
edness shall never end ; and when the grand consum- 
mation of the Divine purpose shall have been effected 
through their instrumentality, they will continue to 
rest in complete satisfation in God through all ages, 
world without end. The ultimate of the Divine pur- 
pose is A Sabbath for all, under the administration 
of the Lord of the Sabbath. 



" Too soon our earthly sabbath, ends 
Cares of a work-day will return, 
And faint our hearts, and fitful burn : 
think, my soul, beyond compare, 
Think what a sabbath must be there ; 
Where all is holy bliss, that knows 
Nor imperfection, nor a close. 



"V 




V 






J. "W. Steel. Sculp. 



'v 



THE DIVINE MAN. 



"V 



A. DIALOGUE 

BBTWEEN REASON AND REVELATION, ON THE INCOR- 
RUPTIBILITY OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY, 



Season. Good-morning, Mr. Eevelation, I am glad 
to meet with you. I have been desirous of consulting 
you on a question of great interest relating to the body 
of Christ. 

Eevelation. I salute you in the Lord. Eom.xvi.22. 
My doctrine is not mine, but his that # sent me; if any 
man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. 
John vii. 16, 17. 

Eea. The question is this — Was the body of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of David, liable to corruption or 
not? 

Eev. Let me freely speak unto you of the Patriarch 
David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepul- 
chre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a 
prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an 
oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to 
the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his 

(141) 



142 THE PIVINE MAN. 

throne; he seeing this before, spake of the resurrec- 
tion of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, 
neither did his flesh see corruption. Acts ii. 29-31. 

Eea. I believe the testimony that Christ rose from 
the dead, consequently was not left in the state of the 
dead, as was David; and so short was the period 
intervening between his death and resurrection, that 
he saw no putrefaction; but was this an essential 
quality of the body of Christ ? 

Eev. And as concerning that he raised him from 
the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he 
said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of 
David. Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm, 
Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For 
David, after he had served his own generation by the 
will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, 
and saw corruption : but he whom God raised again, 
SAW no cokkuptton. Acts xiii. 34-37. 

Eea. I am filled with comfort in the firm belief that 
Christ rose fronx the dead to die no more ; and whether 
the body of Jesus was perishable or not, it was not 
the Divine will that any decomposition should take 
place in that body — therefore it saw no corruption; 
but would not that body have putrefied and decayed, 
had it remained long enough in the tomb ? 

Eev. Him, being delivered by the determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and 
by wicked hands have crucified and slain; whom 
God raised up, having loosed the pains of death : be- 
cause it was IMPOSSIBLE that HE should be holden of it. 
For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the 
Lord always before my face ; for he is on my right 



THE DIVINE MAN. 143 

hand, that I should not be moved: therefore did my 
heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also 
my FLESH shall BEST in hope: because thou wilt not 
leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy 
One to see corruption. Acts ii. 23-27. 

Eea. I understand that in accordance with the eco- 
nomy of the Divine government and the eternal 
principles of rectitude, which exist in the Divine 
mind, and are developed in his administration of the 
affairs of the universe, it was impossible that the body 
of Jesus should see corruption. And it appears, also, 
that, although Christ died, yet he was not, judicially, 
as fallen man is, under the bond or sentence of death. 
The penalty, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt 
return," could have no bearing upon him: and con- 
sequently he could not be retained under the do- 
minion of death. Was then his death voluntary ? and 
had he power to assume life again ? 

Rev. Jesus said, Therefore doth my Father love 

me, because I LAY DOWN MY LIFE THAT I MIGHT TAKE 

IT AGAIN. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it 

down of MYSELF. I HAVE POWER TO LAY IT DOWN 

and I HAVE POWER TO take it again. This com- 
mandment have I received of my Father. John x. 17, 
18. For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath 
lie given to the Son to have life in himself. John v. 
26. 

Eea. In these passages Christ evidently speaks of 
himself as the Son of God, and the only Mediator be- 
tween God and man, and declares that his death and 
rising again were acts of his own, voluntary and de- 
signed ; and effected in accordance with his Fathers 



144 THE DIVINE MAN. 

will, and in virtue of a power and principle of life 
which the Father had given him. Has he elsewhere 
said any thing to the same purpose ? 

Eev. Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this 
temple, and in three days I ivill raise it up. But he 
spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he 
was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that 
he had said this unto them ; and they believed the 
Scriptures, and the words which Jesus had said. John 
ii. 19-22. 

Eea. It certainly was impossible, in accordance with 
the Divine economy, that the body of Jesus should 
see corruption. Did it then differ any from the na- 
tural bodies of mankind generally ? 

Rev. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, 
for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, 
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a 
son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, 
and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the 
Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father 
David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob 
forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. 
Then Mary said unto the angel, How shall this be, 
seeing I know not a man ? And the angel answered 
and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, 
even* the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; 
therefore also that Holy ONEf who shall be born of thee, 
shall be called the Son OF God. Luke i. 80-35. Now 

* The Greek feat has frequently the sense of even, and I think 
it has that sense in this place. 

f There is no word in the Greek corresponding with thing. It 
makes better sense by supplying the term One. 



THE DIVINE MAN. 145 

all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a 
Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a 
son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which 
being interpreted is, God with us. Mat. i. 22, 23. 

Eea. From this it appears that the conception of 
Jesus Christ was not according to natural generation ; 
but was effected by the Divine Spirit in a supernatu- 
ral and inconceivable manner. Hence the son of Mary 
was truly the Son of God incarnated. Did not his 
incarnation, and being born of a woman, involve him 
in the sin of the first representative man, and subject 
him to death as the penalty of that sin ? 

Eev. And ye know that he was manifested to take 
away our sins ; and in him is no sin. 1 John iii. 5. 
For such a high priest became us, who is holy, harm- 
less, andefiled, SEPARATE FROM SINNERS, and made 
higher than the heavens. Heb. vii. 26. Who did no 
sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. 1. Pet. ii. 
22. Who knew no sin. 2 Cor. v. 21. 

Eea. He must, indeed, have been holy ; his nature 
sinless and pure; his life immaculate in word and 
deed; every affection of his mind and every sensa- 
tion of his body so perfectly tempered as not to admit 
of any morbid action or the least irregular move- 
ment. How then could he sympathize with us, and 
to what extent be affected in our behalf? 

Eev. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers 
of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part 
of the same, that through death he might destroy him 
that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and 
deliver them, who through fear of death, were all their 
13 



146 THE DIVINE MAN. 

lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not 
on him (the form or condition) of angels ; but he took 
on him (the form or condition) of the seed of Abra- 
ham."* Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be 
made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful 
and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, 
to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For 
in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted ; he is 
able to succor them that are tempted. Heb. ii. 14-18. 
For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin, Heb. iv. 15. 
For consider him that endured such contradiction of 
sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint 
in your minds. Heb. xii. 3. 

Eea. The incarnation of Christ was then an assump- 
tion of the condition of Abraham's seed — a being 
made in the likeness of sinful flesh — and was neces- 
sary to qualify him to act as Mediator between God and 
men ; and, as High Priest of the human family, offer 
to God an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the world. 
But, if his Divine humanity was essentially free from 
natural infirmity, how did he qualify himself for the 
work of redemption, which required sacrifice and suf- 
fering ? 

Eev. Who, being in the form of God, thought it 
not robbery to be as God ;f but made himself of no repu- 
tation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and 
was made in the likeness of man; and being found in 
fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obe- 

* See Note A. t See Note B. 



THE DIVINE MAN. Ii7 

dient unto death, even the death of the cross. Phil. ii. 
6-8. For he shall grow up before him as a tender 
plant, and as a root out of a dry ground : he hath no 
form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there 
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is de- 
spised and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows, and 
acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our 
faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed 
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried 
our sorrows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten 
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our 
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the 
chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with 
his stripes we are healed. Isa. liii. 2-5. Himself took 
our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Matt. viii. 17. 

Eea. It appears, then, that though he was not per- 
sonally liable to disease or pain or death, yet he could 
Voluntarily suffer, in accordance with the will of God, 
and actually endured affliction, and sorrow, and death, 
for the reconciliation of transgressors. But he could 
not suffer any thing beyond what was included in his 
mediatorial work ; and hence was not liable to corrup- 
tion, which was not included in the things he had to 
endure ; and had it been so ordained that he should 
have remained longer in the sepulchre, still his body 
would not have decayed. But he would have pre- 
served his flesh from corruption by the same power 
by which he rose again from the dead. What amaz- 
ing grace ! The Son of God who dwelt in the bosom 
of the Father vailed his glory, divested himself of the 
form or condition of Godhead which he had with the 
Father before the world was ; and by a mysterious, 



148 THE DIVINE MAN. 

but real incarnation, took the form of a servant, was 
made in the likeness of sinful flesh, suffered, and died 
for our redemption ! 

Bev. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he 
became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be 
rich. 2 Cor. viii. 9. For he hath made him who knew 
no sin to be a sin-offering* for us, that we might be 
made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Cor. v. 21. 
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for 
the unjust, that he might bring us to God. 1 Pet. 
iii. 18. 

Eea. This was truly a wonderful exhibition of 
grace, and excites in my soul the liveliest percep- 
tion of the demerit of sin, which required such a 
sacrifice for its expiation ; and I trust a saving appre- 
hension of the mercy thus manifested in providing 
such a sacrifice and Saviour. Was the Divine nature 
and immaculate purity of Jesus Christ necessary to 
the acceptability and merit of his sacrifice ? 

Eev. Forasmuch then as ye know that ye are not 
redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, 
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
without blemish and without spot ; who verily was fore- 
ordained before the foundation of the world, but was 
manifest in these last times for you ; who by him do 
believe in God that raised him up from the dead and 
gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in 
God. 1 Pet. i. 18-21. But Christ being come a High 
Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more 

* See Note C. 



THE DIVINE MAN. 149 

perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, 
not of this building ; neither by the blood of goats 
and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in 
once into the holy place, having obtained eternal re- 
demption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of 
goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the un- 
clean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how 
much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through 
the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, 
purge your conscience from dead works to serve the 
living God? Heb. ix. 11-14. 

Rea. The sacrifices here alluded to undoubtedly 
indicated, typically, the unblemished nature and im- 
maculate character of Jesus Christ, who is called the 
Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. 
And they show that none but a pure and perfect sacri- 
fice would be acceptable to God. The tabernacle in 
which Christ served was the heavenly ; and the heav- 
enly things had to be purified with a better sacrifice 
than was ordained for the earthly tabernacle which 
Moses pitched in the wilderness. O how wonderful 
that that sacrifice should be his own body ; and that 
he should enter into the Holiest of all with his own 
blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us! 
how sweet are thy words unto me ! Hast thou any 
further testimony concerning the Divine nature of 
Jesus ? 

Rev. In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God. The 
same was in the beginning with God. All things 
were made BY him ; and without him was not any thing 
made that is made. John i. 1-3. And the Word w r as 
13* 



150 THE DIVINE MAN. 

made Flesh and dwelt among us ; (and we beheld his 
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) 
full of grace and truth. John i. 14. For in him dwell- 
eth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Col. ii. 9. 

Eea. I understand, then, that Jesus Christ who 
dwelt among men in a state of humiliation is the 
Word, the Son of God, who was with God before 
the world was, and by whom God made the worlds ; 
who, also, being the brightness of his glory and ex- 
press image of his person appeared as God, in the 
ages previous to his incarnation, and represented God.* 
I also learn that the incarnation changed the condi- 
tion of his being, but not the essence of his nature. 

The Word made Flesh was 

" As much when in the manger laid, 
Almighty Ruler of the sky, 
As when the six days' work he made 
Filled all the morning stars with joy." — Watts. 

* 

Am I not then to understand that the Word made 
Flesh is substantially and essentially the same in his 
incarnate condition that he was before his incarna- 
tion, and indeed that he was in the beginning with 
God? 

Eea. That which was from the beginning, which we 
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we 
have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the 
Word of Life ;f (for the Life was manifested, and 

* See Note D. 
j t The Greek rt£& tov xoyou t w fw^ perhaps would be better 
rendered " concerning the Word the living One," or " concern- 
ing the Living Word." — See Macknight in loco. 



THE DIVINE MAN. 151 

we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you 
THAT ETERNAL life, which was with the Father, and 
was manifested unto us ;) that which we have seen 
and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may 
have fellowship with us ; and truly our fellowship 
is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 
1 John i. 1-3. 

Eea. Then it was indeed the Living Word who 
was in the beginning with God, whom they heard, and 
saw, and looked upon, and handled. But they could 
not see and look upon and handle an invisible and 
intangible spirit. Hence the Living Word was the 
Son of God made flesh, and who really existed in the be- 
ginning. Am I not correct in my conception of the 
substantial identity of the man Christ Jesus and the 
Living Word who, as the Personal Wisdom, says, 
(Prov. viii. 22-31,) The Lord possessed me in the be- 
ginning of his way, before his works of old. I was 
set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever 
the earth was. When there were no depths, I was 
brought forth, etc. 

Eev. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on 
high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto 
men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also 
descended first into the lower parts of the earth ? He 
that descended is the SAME also that ascended up far 
above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) Eph. 
iv. 8-10. No man hath ascended up to heaven, but 
he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man 
who is in heaven. John iii. 13. Jesus Christ the 
same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. Heb. xiii. 8. 

Eea. This is truly an astonishing contemplation ! 



152 THE DIVINE MAN. 

The LIVING Wokd who was in the beginning with God 
and represented God, by appearing as God, was incar- 
nated, was heard, seen, looked upon, and handled ; 
and was the same when in the flesh that he was in the 
beginning with God ; the SAME that he now is and ever 
shall be. Dr. A. Clarke was of opinion that the rudi- 
ments of the human nature of Christ was a real crea- 
tion in the womb of the Virgin, by the energy of the 
Spirit of God :* and it is commonly received that there 
are two natures in Christ ; one Divine, self- existent, 
unoriginated ; the other human, dependent and origi- 
nated, according to Dr. Clarke's opinion, about 1860 
years ago. But I now perceive that these views can- 
not be correct ; for they could not see, look upon, and 
handle the supposed Divine nature, that being invisi- 
ble and intangible ; and if the supposed human nature 
was originated only 1860 years ago, then it could not 
have been in the beginning with God, and could not 
have first descended from heaven before it ascended 
up to heaven. But thy anointing, blessed Bevela- 
tion, teaches me that Jesus Christ is the Woke that 
was in the beginning with God, and was mysteriously 
incarnated, and dwelt with men, being seen and 
handled by them, thus affording infallible proof that 
he had assumed the condition of those whom he 
came to save. Is not this what you would have me 
believe ? 

Eev. Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but 
my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For 

* See Dr. A. Clarke's Com. on Matt. i. 20 and Luke i. 35. 



THE DIVINE MAN". 153 

the bread of God is He who cometh down from heaven, 
and giveth life unto the world. John vi. 32, 33. I am 
the Living Bread which came down from heaven ; if 
any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and 
the bread that I will give is MY flesh, which I will 
give for the life of the world, (v. 51.) This is the bread 
which came down from heaven ; not as your fathers did 
eat manna and are dead ; he that eateth of this bread 
shall live forever, (v. 58.) Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, He that beliveth on me hath everlasting life. I 
am that bread of life. (vv. 47, 48.) 

Eea. Truly Jesus said that His flesh was the 
bread which came down from heaven, and this agrees 
not with, and disproves the opinion of those who hold 
that though the Spirit of Jesus was created or be- 
gotten before all things, and was with God in the be- 
ginning ; yet his body was originated in the womb of 
the Virgin, about 1860 years ago. The term The 
Word was made flesh imports that the Divine hu- 
manity was incarnated — and that his substance or 
essence was the same afier incarnation as before. The 
phrase "a body hast thou prepared me/' has reference 
to the condition which the Divine humanity, by the 
power of the Highest, assumed through the medium of 
the Virgin, and does not refer to any new creation. It is 
evident that Jesus taught the Jews that he, himself, 
whom they heard and saw and looked upon ; he, him- 
self, the incarnate Word, who stood before them in 
the flesh ; he, himself, came down from heaven to give 
life unto the world ; and that they must believe in 
him to obtain everlasting life. Hence he said, "Wljpso 
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal 



154 THE DIVINE MAN\ 

life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my 
flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." 
He thus proposes the doctrine of the incarnation as 
an essential one. And shows that without faith in 
him as the Word made flesh, as the manifested Son 
of God they had no life, that is, no eternal life. Is it 
not so ? 

Eev. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath ; 
I AM FROM ABOVE; Ye are of this world; I AM NOT 
OF this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye 
shall die in your sins ; for if ye believe not that I AM 
He, ye shall die in your sins. Then said they unto 
him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, 
Even the same that I said unto you from the begin- 
ning. John viii. 28-25. I proceeded forth and came 
from God] neither came I of myself, but he sent me. 
(v. 42.) Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every 
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the 
flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not 
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God : 
and this is that spirit of anti-christ whereof ye have 
heard that it should come ; and even now already is it 
in the world. 1 John iv. 2, 3. Wherefore T give you to 
understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of 
God calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say 
that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor. 
xii. 3. The first man (Adam) is of the earth, earthy; 
the second man (Christ) is the Lord from heaven. 1 Cor. 
xv. 47. 

Eea. Jesus certainly spake of himself as the incar- 
nated Word, as the one whom they heard, and saw, 
and looked upon, and handled. He did not say, I 



THE DIVINE MAN. 155 

have a human nature like your own which is from be- 
neath, and is very man; but I have also a Divine na- 
ture which is from above, and is very God. He makes 
the assertion that he, himself, whom they saw and 
conversed with, was from above ; that he proceeded and 
came forth from God. It is the second man, not the 
second person of a tri-personal God, who is the Lokd 
from heaven. Is not the denial of this great truth a 
mark and characteristic of anti-christ ? 

Rev. Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus 
is the Christ ? He is anti-christ that denieth the Fa- 
ther and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the 
same hath not the Father; but he that acknowledged 
the Son, hath the Father also. Let that therefore 
abide in you which you have heard from the begin- 
ning. If that which ye have heard from the begin- 
ning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in 
the Son and in the Father. 1 John ii. 22-24. 

Rea. Then he that says that Jesus is " a mere 
man," and he that says that Jesus was " a new creation 
in the womb of the Virgin," deny that Jesus is the 
Son of God ; both make him a creature ; both deny 
his pre-existence ; both make his existence to com- 
mence with his conception in the womb of the Virgin ; 
both deny that he is the Son of God by whom all 
things were created. And denying the Son, they have 
not the Father. The Father is revealed only through 
the Son. Am I not correct ? 

Rev. Jesus answered, Ye neither know me nor my 
Father ; if ye had known me ye should have known 
my Father also. John viii. 19. All things are de- 
livered unto me of my Father ; and no man knoweth 



156 THE DIVINE MAN. 

the Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man 
the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the 
Son will reveal him. Mat. xL 27. No man hath 
seen God at any time ; the only -begotten Son, who is 
in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. 
John i. 18. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the 
truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, 
but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have 
known my Father also ; and from henceforth ye know 
him and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, 
Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus 
saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, 
and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father ; and how sayest 
thou then Show us the Father? Believest thou not 
that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the 
words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; 
but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doth the 
works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the 
Father in me ; or else believe me for the very works' 
sake. John xiv. 6-11. 

Rea. I understand that God is a Spirit, everywhere 
present but invisible, and no man hath seen him at 
any time. The Son of God is the revealer of the God- 
head ; and the theophanies of the old dispensations 
were manifestations of God through the Son, who 
being in the form of God thought it no robbery- to ap- 
pear as God. And when he was incarnated, his rela- 
tion as the revealer of the Godhead was not changed, 
though his condition was changed. He was still the 
representative of God, and in him the Father was 
manifested. Hence he could say truly, He that hath 



THE DIVINE MAN. 157 

seen me, hath seen the Father ; for he was still the 
image of the invisible God ; the same yesterday and 
to-day, and forever. Was it not thus that God was 
seen in the incarnate Word ? 

Eev. And without controversy, great is the mys- 
tery of godliness ; God ivas manifested in the FLESH, 
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto 
the gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into 
glory. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 

Eea. I understand by this that inasmuch as the 
Word or Son of God who was with God in the begin- 
ning, and represented God in the ancient theophanies, 
was made flesh ; so God, who is never manifested ex- 
cept by the Son, was by him manifested in the flesh, 
that is in his incarnate state.* Did Christ, during his 
humiliation, give any special exhibition of his glory 
to his disciples ? 

Eev. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, 
that there be some of them that stand here, which 
shall not taste of death, till they have seen the king- 
dom of God come with power. And after six days, 
Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and 
bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was 
transfigured before them ; and his face did shine as the 
sun, and his raiment ivas white as the light. And, be- 
hold, a bright cloud overshadowed them ; and, behold, 
a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him. 
Mark ix. 1, and Mat. xvii. 1-5. For we have not fol- 
lowed cunningly devised fables, when we made known 

* See Note E. 

14 



158 THE DIVINE MAN. 

unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For 
he received from God the Father honor and glory, 
when there came such a voice to him from the excel- 
lent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, 
we heard when we were with him in the holy mount. 
2 Pet. i. 16-18. 

Eea. "It is observed that the condition in which 
Jesus Christ appeared among men — humble — poor — 
despised, was a true and continual transfiguration ; 
whereas the transfiguration itself, in which he showed 
himself in the real splendor of his glory, was his true 
and natural condition." Ceuden. The transfiguration 
appears to have been a miniature representation of 
the coming kingdom of Christ, when he will appear in 
his glory and in the glory of his Father. His condi- 
tion before his incarnation was glorious, and his con- 
dition now is glorious, and his condition hereafter will 
be glorious ; and such I take to be the real condition 
of Christ. His condition of humiliation and suffering 
was then only assumed for the purposes of human 
redemption. 

Eev. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower 
than the angels for the sufferings of death, crowned 
with glory and honor ; that he by the grace of God 
should taste death for every man. Heb. ii. 9. But we 
speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the 
hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world 
unto our glory : which none of the princes of this 
world knew : for had they known it, they would not 
have crucified the Lord of Glory. 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8. 



THE DIVINE MAN. 159 

Eea. I am led to tlie conclusion that the Divine 
humanity of Christ was really in itself most glorious 
and perfect, and had he not vailed it in a humble con- 
dition by taking upon him the form of a servant, his 
brightness would have shone forth with such a splen- 
dor as would have overpowered mortal vision. 

11 Behold the Lamb of God, who bears 
The sins of all the world away ! 
A servant's lowly form he wears, 
He sojourns in a house of clay ! 
His glory is no longer seen. 
But Grod with God is man with men." — Wesley. 

If this is so, and I see nothing to the contrary, may 
not the body of Christ have been in the days of 
his humiliation constituently spiritual and incorrup- 
tible? 

Eev. And so it is written, The first man Adam was 
made a living soul; and the last Adam was made a 
quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which 
is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward 
that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth 
earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. 
As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; 
and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are 
heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the 
earthy, we also bear the image of the heavenly. Now 
this I say, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit 
incorruption. Behold I show you a mystery : We shall 
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump ; 



160 THE DIVINE MAN. 

for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For 
this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality. 1 Cor. xv. 45-59. 

Eea. I perceive the argument of the apostle is, that 
the body of Christ was constituently a spiritual and 
incorruptible body, inasmuch as he was the Lord 
from heaven ; and that believers in Christ who by 
nature inherit a mortal and corruptible body from 
the first Adam, shall eventually be changed into the 
image of Christ ; that this change shall take place at 
the last day, when the trump of God shall sound ; and 
then the body of Christ will be the pattern after which 
the bodies of all the saints shall be constituted, also 
spiritual and incorruptible. Is it not so? 

Eev. For our polity* is in heaven ; from whence 
also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
who shall change our vile body, that it may be fash- 
ioned like unto his glorious body, according to the 
working whereby he is able even to subdue all things 
to himself. Phil. iii. 20, 21. 

Eea. It appears then that it was the Incarnate 
"Word, the Son of God, who really suffered on the 
cross, was buried and rose again the third day. 
Hence the sacrifice offered for our sins was not the 
death of a mere man like ourselves ; nor of one whose 
" human nature was a real creation in the womb of 
the Yirgin ;" but it was the death of the Son of God him- 
self, and therefore a Divine Sacrifice of infinite 
merit on which we may confidently rely as trust- 

* See Note F. 



THE DIVINE MAN. 161 

worthy ground of pardon and acceptance with God. 
Is it not so ? 

Rev. Forasmuch as ye know that ye are not re- 
deemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, from 
your vain conversation received by tradition, from 
your Father ; but with the precious blood of Cheist, 
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Who 
verily was foreordained before the foundation of the 
world, but was MANIFEST in these last times for you, 
who by him do believe in God that raised him up 
from the dead, and gave him glory ; that your faith 
and hope might be in God. 1 Pet. i. 18-21. For I de- 
livered unto you first of all that which I also received, 
how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures ; and that he was buried, and that he rose 
again the third day according to the Scriptures ; and 
that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve ; after 
that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at 
once. After that he was seen of James ; then of all 
the apostles. 1 Cor. xv. 3-7. To whom also he showed 
himself alive after his passion, by many infallible 
proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking 
of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Acts 
i. 3. And he led them out as far as to Bethany ; and 
he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came 
to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from 
them, and carried up into heaven. And they wor- 
shiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 
Luke xxiv. 50-52. 

Eea. The present condition of Jesus, then, is what 
may be considered as the natural condition of his Di- 
vine humanity — a condition which belongs to him 
14* 



162 THE DIVINE MAN. 

as the Son of God, and which he had before his incar- 
nation. 

Kev. In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also 
the Lord sitting upon a throne ; high and lifted up, 
and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the 
seraphim ; each one had six wings ; with twain he 
covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, 
and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto an- 
other and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; 
the whole earth is fall of his glory. Also I heard the 
voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who 
will go for lis ? Then said I, Here am I, send me. 
And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, 
but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive 
not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make 
their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see 
with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under- 
stand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Isa. 
vi. 1-3, 8-10. These things said Esaias when he saw 
his glory and spake of him. John xii. 41. 

Be A. It was then our Lord Jesus Christ, the image 
(representative) of the invisible God, who was seen by 
Isaiah as you have described. But when he was in- 
carnated he laid aside or vailed that glory, and be- 
came a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 
Did he make any manifestation of his resumption of 
that glory after his ascension into heaven ? 

Kev. And I turned to see the voice that spake with 
me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candle- 
sticks: and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, 
one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment 
down to his feet, and girt about the paps with a golden 



THE MAN DIVINE. 163 

girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as 
white as snow : and his eyes were as a flame of fire : 
and his feet like unto fine brass, as if it burned in a 
furnace : and his voice as the sound of many waters. 
And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of 
his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword : and his 
countenance was as the sun shining in his strength. 
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And 
he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear 

not ; I AM THE FlRST AND THE LAST ; I AM HE THAT 
LIVETH, AND WAS DEAD; AND BEHOLD I AM ALIVE 

forever more, Amen, and have the keys of hell and 
of death. Eev. i. 12-18. 

Eea. Is not Jesus Christ the Messenger Jehovah, 
who being in the form of God appeared as God to the 
patriarchs and prophets of old ? 

Eev. Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor 
is nothing : It is my Father that honoreth me, of whom 
ye say, hat the is your God : yet ye have not known 
him : and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be 
a liar like unto yon : but I know him, and keep his 
saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my 
day : and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews 
unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast 
thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was I am. 
John viii. 54-58. 

Eea. What is the testimony of God concerning the 
pre-existence and Divine nature of the Lord Jesus 
Christ ? 

Eev. And thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou 
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee 



164 THE LIVIXE MAN. 

shall he come forth unto me that is to be Euler in Israel; 
whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. 
Mic. v. 2. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne. O 
God, is forever and ever ; a sceptre of righteousness 
is the sceptre of thy kingdom : Thou hast loved right- 
eousness and hated iniquity; therefore, God, even 
thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness 
above thy fellows. And, thou Lord in the beginning 
hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens 
are the work of thy hands: they shall perish, but 
thou remainest ; and they shall wax old as doth a gar- 
ment ; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up ; and 
they shall be changed ; but thou art the same, and thy 
years shall not fail. Ileb. i. 8-12. 

Eea. It appears then, that Jesus, who came forth 
out of Bethlehem bv being made of a woman, was 
the same whose goings forth were of old from ever- 
lasting as the Son of God. That by him God created 
all things and upholds and governs all. That he sus- 
tained the character of the Messenger Jehovah, and to 
the patriarchs and prophets in old times appeared as 
God, and was called by the names of God. Is it 
not so ? 

Eev. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is 
given, and the government shall be upon his shoul- 
der ; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
selor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The 
Prince of Peace. Isa. ix. 6.* 

Eea. what a blessed light breaks in upon my 
soul ! My Saviour is revealed to me in his Divine hu- 

* See Note G. 



THE DIVINE MAN. 165 

inanity, and with Thomas I exclaim, " My Lord, and 
my God I" I ask no more. 

I know thee now thou holt one, 
For thee I face to face have seen — 

The Word Divine made flesh, I own 
As God with God, as man with men. 

I now perceive the nature and character of my 
blessed Lord and Saviour. The Word is made flesh 
— the Son of God is made of a woman, is made in the 
likeness of men ; but, being Adam's Creator and Lord, 
he was not involved in the condemnation of Adam's 
sin, consequently it was impossible far his body to 
see corruption, and it would not have undergone 
the temporary death to which it was not naturally 
liable, had it not been voluntarily for the purpose of 
making an atonement for sin, and reconciling us to 
God. It is therefore impossible that the Divine hu- 
manity of our Lord could be subject to corruption : 
for though it was possible that the spirit and body 
might be separated for a time, it was not liable to 
dissolution, inasmuch as it was not a natural body but 
a spiritual body. And as the Father has life in him- 
self, even so he gave to the Son to have life in him- 
self. I see Jesus thus fully qualified by the dignity 
of his nature as the only-begotten Son of God, the 
spotless purity of his character and his voluntary suf- 
ferings, for the great work of man's redemption. My 
Great High Priest and sacrifice is the Son of God; and 
with Watts I exclaim, 

" A guilty, weak and helpless worm 
Into thine arms I fall ; 
Be thou my strength and righteousness, 
My Jesus and my all." 



166 THE DIVINE MAN. 

Blessed Eevelation ! I wonder at the glorious 
things thou hast made known unto me. The law of 
thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold 
and silver. 

Eev. All the words of my mouth are in righteous- 
ness ; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. 
They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right 
to them that find knowledge. Eeceive my instructions 
and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. 
Prov. viii. 8-10. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy 
spirit. 2 Tim. iv. 22. 

Eea. Amen. 



NOTES. 



A. 

Heb. ii. 16. I regard this sentence as elliptical. 
Parkhurst, I think ; gives the true meaning of the 
verb frtaa^cwco in this place, viz., to assume — to take 
upon one. See his Lexicon. The verb is compounded 
of era upon and xau/3cww to take. Aa^j3avco is used in 
Phil. ii. 7, in this sense, and ?*t in construction only 
strengthens this meaning or intensifies it. But as the 
verb take is equivalent to the meaning given by Park- 
hurst, we may, marking the ellipses, translate the 

sentence thus, "For truly he took not of 

angels, but he took of the seed of Abraham." 

The ellipsis in each member of the sentence should be 
filled with the same word properly to express the 
apostle's meaning. It should be one significant of 
something belonging to both angels and Abraham's 
seed. What it is must be learned from the apostle's 
argument, in accordance with the analogy of faith, 
corroborated by other parallel passages of Scripture. 
King James' translators supplied the first ellipsis 

(167) 



168 NOTES. 

•with the word nature and left the second unsupplied ; 
but if the genitive ayy«*.wv required that some word 
should be supplied to complete the sense of the first 
member of this sentence, the genitive <*** p^aro* required 
the same for the second, which is as evidently ellipti- 
cal as the first. The word nature, however, does not 
accord with the apostle's argument, which relates to 
the Saviour's condition of humiliation and suffering. 
The word nature relates to the essence or substance of 
a thing ; but the apostle is not speaking of the being 
or substance of Christ, but of what he took upon him ; 
hence the term nature is inappropriately, if not ab- 
surdly, used in this case. It does not agree with other 
Scriptures, which speak of Christ as being made in the 
likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, 
and as taking on him the form of a servant, etc. Nor 
is it in accordance with the analogy of faith, which 
represents Christ as a Divine person, a quickening 
Spirit, and not a natural man. 

In the revised version by the American Bible Union 
\\iq passage is thus rendered, " For surely he doth not 
help angels, but he helpeth the seed of Abraham." 
This rendering appears objectionable on the following 
grounds : 

1st. Some Scriptures import that Christ does help 
angels. Compare Matt, xxviii. 18 ; Luke xix. 88 ; Eph. 
i. 10 ; iii. 15 ; Phil. ii. 10 ; Col. i. 20. 

2d. That his help is not restricted to Abraham's seed 
only, whether the natural seed or the seed of faith, but 
extends to all mankind to some degree. 1 Tim. ii. 1-7, 
and iv. 10. 

3d. There does not appear to be any reference to 



NOTES. 169 

fallen angels in this discourse of the apostle's In 
chap. i. 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, and ii. 2, 5, 7, 9, the refer- 
ence is to the holy angels, and without doubt they 
are still the subjects of discourse in v. 16, which 
therefore requires a corresponding signification. The 
meaning imposed by this rendering upon the apostle's 
language is altogether foreign to his argument, which 
is to show that Jesus Christ was made a little lower 
than the angels for the suffering of death ; and made 
like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and 
faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to 
make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 

The word condition (or form, in the sense of condi- 
tion, as used in Phil. ii. 7,) is unobjectionable and no 
doubt the right one. It makes good sense, accords 
with the apostle's argument, is scriptural, and agrees 
with the analogy of faith. Phil. ii. 6-8 is, I think, a 
parallel passage with Heb.ii. 16-18, and from it I would 
supply the ellipses in this sentence by the word ^op^, 
form or condition, and render it thus, u For truly he 
took not the condition of angels, but he took the con- 
dition of Abraham's seed." It was thus that he quali- 
fied himself for the work of human redemption by 
taking a condition lower than that of the angels, even 
the condition of fallen humanity. 

B. 

Phil. ii. 6-8. Dr. Doddridge translates this passage 
thus: "Let the same mind be in you which was also 
in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, 
thought it not robbery to be as God, nevertheless, 
emptied himself, taking upon him the form of a 
15 



170 NOTES. 

servant, when made in the likeness of men : and be- 
ing found in fashion as a man ; he humbled himself, 
becoming obedient even unto death,, death of the 
cross." On the clause ioa @*co, which he paraphrases 
M to be and appear as God," he says, "So Kja©£« is most 
exactly rendered, agreeable to the force of tea in many 
places in the Septuagint, which Dr. Whitby has col- 
lected in his note on this place. The proper Greek 
phrase for equal to God is taov i<* ©««, which is used John 
v. 18. 

Macknight renders it thus, " Who being in the form 
of God, did not think it robbery to he like God" and 
says, "so to swat ica ®sco literally signifies." For Whitby 
hath proved in the clearest manner, that ica is used 
adverbially by the LXX to express likeness, bijt not 
equality, the proper term for which is itov. So that if 
the apostle had meant to say equal with God, the 
phrase would have been ksqv ©sw as we have in John 
v. 18. 

The phrase form of God is evidently used to des- 
ignate the pre-existent state of Christ, and the form 
of a servant is employed to express his incarnated state. 
These two conditions are put in antithesis, and both 
are predicated of the same person ; but he could not 
sustain both at the same time. The form of God was 
laid aside when he took the form of a servant. Form 
cannot signify nature ; for he could not divest himself 
of his nature. The form of God refers to the glory 
lie possessed as the representative of the invisible 
God. Being the brightness of his glory, and the ex- 
press image of his person, he thought it no robbery 
to be as God, and hence to the angels appeared as God, 



NOTES. 171 

and also to the patriarchs and prophets of olden times. 
In this he did not rob God of the honor due him, for 
being the representative of God, it was his right, by 
the ordination of God himself, to receive adoration 
from those intelligences whom God had made by him. 
Indeed Christ himself says, " The Father judgeth no 
man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son ; 
that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor 
the Father. He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth 
not the Father who hath sent him." John v. 22, 23. 
The claim of Christ to divine honors is not founded 
upon his being God but upon his being in the form of 
God. Being in the form of God he thought it no rob- 
bery to be as God. To be as God indicated his appear- 
ing in Godlike majesty and receiving divine honors. 
And this he did before he was incarnated. And yet 
though that was his real and proper condition as the 
Son of God ; he did not hesitate, for the accomplish- 
ment of human redemption, to divest himself of that 
glory, and to make himself of no reputation, taking 
the form of a servant, and humbling himself even to 
suffer a most painful and ignominious death. Such 
was the greatness and extent of his love for us. 

C. 

2 Cor. v. 21. Dr. Barnes says, " The Greek here is, 
1 for him who knew no sin, he hath made sin or a sin- 
offering for us.' That it means that God made him 
(Christ) a sin-offering, is adopted by Whitby, Dod- 
ridge, Macknight, Kosenmuller and others. There are 
many passages in the Old Testament where the word 
sin' (auaprta) is used in the sense of sin-offering, or 



172 NOTES. 

a sacrifice for sin. Thus Hos. iv. 8 : l They eat up the 
sin of my people ;' i e. the sin-offerings. See Ezek. xliii. 
22, 25 ; xliv. 29 ; xlv. 22, 23, 25." 

Dr. A. Clarke says, "It signifies a sin-offering or sacri- 
fice for sin and answers to the chataah and chataath of 
the Hebrew text, which signifies both sin and sin-offer- 
ing in a great variety of places in the Pentateuch. The 
Sejptuagint translate the Hebrew word by a^tlo, in 
ninety -four places in Exodus, Leviticus and Number ■*, 
where a sin-offering is meant ; and where our version 
translates the word not sin, but an offering for sin." 

The Wob'B represented Gor>. That this is the 
meaning of the clause "and the "Word was God" in 
John i. 1, I think is unquestionable. In the preceding 
clause, "and the Word was with God," a distinction is 
made between the Word and God, corresponding 
to that which is made by the Saviour himself in 
his prayer, John xvii. 5, " And now, O Father, glo- 
rify thou me with thine ownself with the glory which 
I had with thee before the world was." Christ, the 
Word, was with God, and could not be that God with 
whom he was. To assert this would be contradictory 
and absurd. We may then inquire whether the lan- 
guage may not bear another and consistent meaning. 
D. A. Clarke says, " There is scarcely a more common 
form of speech in any language than This is, for this RE- 
PRESENTS or signifies." And he says " This bread is my 
body, has no other meaning than, This bread repre- 
sents my body." In like manner he shows that, This 
cup IS my bloody means This cup REPRESENTS my blood ; 



NOTES. 173 

and That Rock WAS Christ, signifies That Rock re- 
presented Christ Doddridge paraphrases to the same 
purport, and Dr. Barnes says, u This is my body. This 
represents my body. This could not be intended to 
mean that that bread was literally his body. It was 
not." Again, u For this is my blood. This represents my 
blood, as the bread did his body." Now as in these 
cases we avoid the absurdity of supposing the bread 
to be the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of 
Christ, and the rock in the wilderness to be really 
Christ himself, by giving to the verb a meaning which 
is very common and in accordance with the genius of 
all languages; so in the explanation of John i. 1, we 
avoid the absurdity of supposing that the Word is 
the God that he was with, by giving to the verb this 
very same meaning. a In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
represented God." And this agrees with v. 18. u No 
man hath seen God at anytime; the only -begotten 
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath de- 
clared him." 

E. 

1 Tim. iii. 16. It can scarcely be doubted, I think, 
that the Son of God is the person here spoken of as 
having been manifest in the flesh, justified in the 
spirit, etc. The term God is, according to both the 
Old and New Testaments, applied to the Son. Thus 
in Isa. ix. 6. " Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son 
is given, and the government shall be upon his shoul- 
der; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
selor, Mighty God," etc. And in Heb. i. 8; "But 
15* 



174 NOTES. 

unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, God, is forever 
and ever," etc. The term God appears to have been an 
official designation, and employed to denote a divinely 
appointed messenger or ruler. Thus of Moses God 
said, " See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh." The 
congregation of Israel are called Gods in Psalm 
lxxxii., because to them the word of the Lord came 
in the promise that they should be to him a kingdom 
of priests on condition of their keeping his covenant. 
" God standeth in the congregation of the mighty : he 
judgeth among the Gods," v. 1. But in consequence 
of their breaking his covenant; he says in vv. 6, 7. 
" I have said, Ye are Gods ; and all of you are children 
of the Most High ; but ye shall die like men ; and fall 
like one of the princes." Now if Moses be called God, 
and if he called them Gods to whom the word of God 
came, why may not the Son of God, who is the only 
proper representative of God, and the heir of all things, 
be called God ; as he is in the eighth verse of the same 
Psalm, £ * Arise, God, judge the earth ; for thou shalt 
inherit all nations." Hence then to say, God was mani- 
fest in the flesh, amounts to no more than that Christ 
the Son of God was incarnated. But as he is the re- 
presentative of God, I have supposed the term God to 
be taken in its highest sense to denote the self-exist- 
ent and invisible One — the Great Supreme, and have 
given the passage a meaning it will very well bear in 
accordance with the analogy of faith, viz., that the 
Supreme God was manifested in the incarnated Word. 

F. 

Phil. iii. 20. " For our polity is in heaven," etc. The 
word Ttoteirvpa, which the King James's translators 



NOTES. 175 

have rendered by conversation, properly signifies the 
administration, government, or polity of a kingdom or 
state. It is used here to designate the polity of the 
glorious and everlasting kingdom of Christ which is 
now in heaven, reserved until the coming of Christ 
from heaven, when it will be revealed, and when all 
the saints of God shall be qualified by the resurrec- 
tion and translation to enter into and possess it. 

G. 

Isa. ix. 6. This prophecy belongs to Jesus Christ 
and to no other. He is the Child born and the Son 
given of whom the prophet speaks. All power in 
heaven and earth is given into his hands, and the 
government of the world is on his shoulder ; for he 
shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the rivers 
unto the ends of the earth. The names by which he 
is called are expressive of some relations and condi- 
tions which he sustains in the great Mediatorial work 
which is committed to his hands. 

How appropriate the term Wondekful to him who 
is the only-begotten Son of God, who existed with the 
Father before the world was, who is the brightness of 
his glory and express image of his person ; and who 
was incarnated, made flesh, and dwelt among us, the 
Child of a virgin mother. Truly, great is the mystery 
of Godliness, " God manifest in the flesh." God was 
manifested before the incarnation by Jesus Christ who, 
being in the form of God, thought it no robbery 
to appear as God ; but after the incarnation he was 
manifest in the flesh — in Jesus the incarnate Word. 
There is no relation in which we can contemplate 



176 NOTES. 

Christ, in which he does not sustain the character of 
the Wonderful. 

Equally appropriate is the term Counselor, for 
in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ; 
and he, of God, is made unto us Wisdom. By him 
the law was given on Sinai, and by him expounded 
in his Sermon on the Mount. By him the great pur- 
pose of God in redemption is revealed ; and he now 
lives in the presence of the Father to intercede for us. 
He is our Advocate with the Father, and therefore the 
Counselor. 

He is called the Mighty God {El-gibbor) the pre- 
vailing or conquering God. God is an official desig- 
nation, and is applied to angels, to magistrates, and 
rulers ; but it is given to Jesus Christ pre-eminently 
above them all, as in Heb. i. 8, 9. " But unto the Son 
he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever ; a 
sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy king- 
dom ; thou hast loved righteousness and hated ini- 
quity ; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed 
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." He 
is the conquering God, because all things shall be 
subdued to him, and by him reconciled to the Fa- 
ther. And to him every knee shall bow, and every 
tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the glory of 
God the Father. 

He is called, The Everlasting Father (abi ad) or 
Father of the everlasting age, not as some sup- 
pose because he is the Father, for that is absurd. He 
cannot be the Son and the Father both. But he is so 
called because, as the Mediator, he will reconcile all 
things to God, and so bring in the everlasting age or 



NOTES. 177 

world without end, when his saints shall all be kings 
and priests with him, and the rest of mankind shall 
be subject to their government. That everlasting age 
will be the consummation of his mediation, the result 
of the work which is committed to his hands, and 
hence he is called the Father of the everlasting 
age. 

He is called the Prince of Peace, because the 
atonement which he hath made for our sins makes 
peace; and he is our Peace. And his government 
over the world will insure peace forever. 

There is nothing absurd or contradictory in these 
appellations. They all belong to Christ in his Medi- 
atorial character and relations. 



"V 



INDEX 



TO DIALOGUE BETWEEN REASON AND REVELATION ON 
THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE SAVIOUR'S BODY. 

PAGE 

Salutations, 141 

Incorruptibility of Christ's body, 141 

Christ saw no corruption, 142 

Could not be holden of death, 142 

Was not judicially liable to death,.... 143 

Suffered voluntarily, . 143 

Had power to resume the life he laid down, 143 

Was the Son of God, 144 

Was holy, 145 

Was incarnated, 145 

Assumed man's condition for the mediatorial work, 146 

Was the Incarnated Word, , 149 

The same that was in the beginning with God, 150 

And not a "real creation," as Dr. A. Clarke says, 152 

Came down from Heaven, 153 

Doctrine of the Incarnation an essential one, 154 

Its denier, an antichrist, .... 155 

Christ represents God, 156 

The Transfiguration,.... 157 

Christ a quickening spirit, 159 

His death a Divine Sacrifice, 160 

His condition now what it was before the Incarnation, 162 

His Divine nature, etc., 164 

179 



180 



INDEX. 



NOTES. 

PAGB 

A. OnHeb. ii. 16, 167 

B. On Phil. ii. 6-8, • 169 

C. On 2 Cor. v. 21, 171 

D. On John i. 1, 172 

E. On 1 Tim. iii. 16, 173 

F. OnPMl. iii. 20, 174 

G. Onlsa. ix. 6, 175 



THB BKD* 



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■M 



23 Jart 1801'. 



JUST PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOK, 

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ALL THE BEST OF MANKIND WILL BE SUB- 
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AN INTEKESTING- BOOK 

SECOND EDITION, 

CONTAINING THE 

VINDICATION OF HIS THEORY OF REDEMPTION, 

406 pages, with Portrait, bound in cloth, $1.00, and will be 
sent, postage paid, to order, on the receipt of the price in good 
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Address, JOHN G. WIfc.SO]¥ 5 

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For Notices of the Book read the following pages. 



DISCOURSES ON PROPHECY. 

The following notices of this book have been received from 
different sources. 

" The author is evidently a close Bible student, and has made 
himself very familiar with the prophecies." — Christian Sun. 

" The author treats the subject in a new light. The work 
abounds in beautiful paragraphs." — Oxford Evening Mail. 

" It is an interesting work, characterized by an honest search 
after truth, and a devout spirit." — Presbyterian. 

" The book is very readable, and none can peruse it without 
profit. "We regard the volume as eminently calculated to do 
good. We recommend it to all classes as fitted to be perma- 
nently useful." — Herald of Gospel Liberty. 

" The book is not only a book to be read, but to be thought 
upon." — J. N. Spoor. 

" If any man takes it up, and gives his attention and thought 
to it, he will find what will amply repay him. He will find 
thought, (something scarce now-a-days,) deep, original thought. 
He will find logic, and most undeniable logic. He will find 
more and better than all that, too. He will find so much of the 
pure and true spirit of Christianity, that if he does not shut the 
book a better man, the fault is heavily his own." — * * * 

"You always set me to thinking." — W. T. Eva. 

"The spirit and tendency of the volume are favorable to ex- 
perimental and practical piety. The author is constantly look- 



ing for Christ and his kingdom, and labors to prepare his readers 
to participate in the hastening glory." — T. H. Stockton. 

" Mr. Wilson treats, in this series of discourses, of the work 
of Eedemption, from its institution in Paradise, on the fall of 
our first parents, through all its steps, till Christ's triumph shall 
be completed over his foes. He holds to the restoration of the 
Israelites ; the resurrection of the holy dead at the commence- 
ment of the Millennium ; Christ's personal reign here : and the 
perpetuity of the earth, as the abode of the redeemed and the 
seat of his kingdom ; and most of the numerous themes which 
he discusses are treated in a satisfactory manner. He is familiar 
with the sacred word ; he presents his thoughts clearly, and 
urges them with earnestness and force." — Theological and Lite- 
rary Journal, 

" The design of this book is to show that the dominion of the 
world will be given to the saints of God, and that all the rest 
of mankind will be subject to their government. The author, 
who is pastor of a church in Philadelphia, is, in his manner of 
interpreting Scripture, what is called a Literalist ; and believes 
that Christ will come personally before the Millennium, and with 
his saints will reign over the nations during that period. He 
also believes that the Jews, or natural seed of Abraham accord- 
ing to the promise, will be restored to their own land at the 
coming of Christ, and that the Millennium will be a mediatorial 
dispensation, exceeding all others in excellency and glory." — 
Church Advocate. 

" Your book is written calmly and well. It displays much 
patient study of that side of the question." — A. Webster, D.D. 

" The book on prophecy has interested me more than any 
similar work." — H. F. Moffatt. 

'I think, without endorsing every sentiment, I can recom. 
mend the work. There is in it, obviously, originality of thought, 
much research, and the honest expression of the convictions 
of your own mind. Then the style in which you have written 
is decidedly good, and frequently eloquent, and your reasoning 
forcible, if not conclusive." — J. W. Rutledge. 



" Now for your book. I give you credit for great labor to 
find out the truth — for manly independence in making a frank 
and open disclosure of what you are persuaded is the truth, and 
for doing all this in an amiable, Christian spirit. The moral 
effect of your book upon the reader can't be otherwise than 
good — in it he will not have to sift out sand all day to get a 
few grains of pure gold. Contrariwise, he will find a great deal 
of gold, and but little sand. But still, I think, among the gold 
there is some sand ; indeed, where is the work so full of gold as 
to have no sand ! — God's book alone is infallible. 

" I hope you will publish a second edition of your Discourses. 
The great events of which you have written are just at hand. 
The church of Christ should be roused up to investigate these 
subjects, and if any man believes you to be wrong, let him in 
the meekness of wisdom show that wrong and set you right." — 
George Brown, late President of Madison College. 

" The style is neat, and the sentiments clearly and forcibly 
expressed."— Evangelical Repository. 

" The study of prophecy is one of deep interest to every man 
who would know what is the mind of the Spirit — one, it may 
be, that receives too little attention. Mr. Wilson has turned 
his attention largely to the study of prophecy, and has given 
to the world a book of much interest. He treats the prophecies 
in accordance with the analogy of faith, and shows in the pro- 
phetical records the unfoldings of the eternal purpose of God 
in the salvation of mankind by Jesus Christ. In the interpre- 
tation of scripture, Mr. Wilson may be termed a literalist, be- 
lieving in the restoration of the Jews to their own land, the 
resurrection of the saints at the commencement of the Millen- 
nium, and the personal reign of Christ upon earth. With some 
of his positions we would not agree ; but can, withal, cheerfully 
recommend the book to our readers. They will find in it that 
which many of the publications of the present day have no 
claim to, close, vigorous, earnest thought, and much too of the 
spirit of Christianity." — Banner of the Covenant. 



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